THE 

COUNTRY  OF  HORACE 
AND  VIRGIL 


BY 

GASTON    BOISSIER 

OF   THE   FRENCH   ACADEMY 


TRANSLATED  BY 

D.    HAVELOCK    FISHER 


WITH    MAPS    AND    PLANS 


V^  or  -  -.; 


) 


NEW  YORK 
G.     P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

27    AND    29    WEST    23D    STREET 
1896 


~)  ^^ / If 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Horace's  Country  House    .   .    .   .1-58 

I.  How  Horace  came  to  know  Maecenas — Char- 
acter of  Maecenas — Life  in  his  house — The  palace 

of  the  Esqniline     . 5-15 

II.  "Was  Horace  really  a  lover  of  Nature  ? — The 
second  Epode — How  residence  in  Eome  became 
unbearable  to  him — The  consequences  for  him  of 
his  intimacy  with  Maecenas — Beggars  and  Bores — 
The  joy  he  must  have  felt  when  Maecenas  gave 

him  the  estate  in  the  Sabine  Hills         .         .         ,      15-24 

HI.  Journey  to  the  house  in  the  Sabina — The 
Temple  of  Yacuna  —  Roccagiovine  —  Fonte  delV 
Oratini — Probable  position  of  the  house — Extent 
of  Horace's  domain — Pleasantness  of  the  site        .      24-37 

IV.  Renown  of  Horace's  country  house  among 
the  poets  of  Rome — Position  of  poets  in  Rome — 
Relations  of  Horace  and  Maecenas  to  each 
other — How  the  poet  made  the  great  lord  respect 
him 37-48 


VI  CONTENTS. 

PACES 

V.  How  Horace  lived  at  his  country  house — 
His  journeys  —  He  begins  to  regret  Rome  no 
more — His  last  vears 48-58 


CHAPTER  11. 

The  Etruscan  Tombs  at  Corneto      .      .      .     59-115 

I.  How  Tarquinii  disappeared  —  Corneto  — 
Relics  of  the  Middle   Ages  and  the   Renaissance 

at  Corneto — The  Etruscan  tombs — General  aspect      62-72 

II.  Importance  of  sepulture  among  the  Etrus- 
cans— The  paintings  in  the  tombs — Few  scenes  of 
sadness  found  among  them — How  it  is  that  they 
so  often  represent  banquets  and  games  —  The 
exactness  of  these  paintings — The  costume  of  the 
personages  is  that  of  the  ancient  Romans — The 
small  number  representing  mythological  subjects, 
and  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  this — The 
Etruscans  accept  the  fables  of  Greece  — Tomha 
del'  Oreo — "What  happens  to  these  fables  among 

the  Etruscans — Charun 73-91 

III.  The  paintings  in  the  tombs  the  only  means 
we  have  of  becoming  acquainted  with  Etruscan 
ci\TLlization — Ancient  tombs — They  do  not  differ 
from  those  of  other  Italian  races — The  period  in 
which  we  find  amber,  and  why  we  cease  to  find  it 
a  little  later — Vdd  di  hucchero  Nero — Influence  of 
the  Carthaginians — At  what  moment  it  must  have 


CONTENTS.  Vll 

PAGES 

begun — Have  we  a  right  to  infer  from  the  presence 
of  Phoenician  objects  in  the  tombs  of  Etruria  the 
Eastern  origin  of  the  Etruscans  ? — The  influence 
of  Greece — At  what  epoch  was  it  exercised  I — Can 
it  be  said  that  Etruscan  art  never  possessed  origin- 
ality ? —  Paintings  at  Ccere — Decadence  and  end 
of  Etruscan  art  .         .         .         .         .         .         .        91-115 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Country  of  the  jEneid      .      .       .      .117-171 

I.  The  Legend  OF  ^NEAS 119-171 

I.  The  legends — Why  they  deserve  to  be 
studied — The  legend  of  iEneas — How  it  arose — 
^Eneas  in  the  Iliad — Homer  supposes  the  race  of 
the  JEneides  to  have  been  established  on  Mount 
Ida — The  journeys  of  ^Eneas — How  it  came  to  be 
supposed  that  he  left  Asia — The  worship  of  Aphro- 
dite, the  mother  of  ^neas — Genesis  of  the  legend  119-132 

11.  How  the  legend  of  JEneas  penetrated  into 
Italy — Opinion  of  Niebuhr — It  does  not  rej^lace 
the  Italian  legends,  but  rather  overlaps  them — 
It  is  connected  with  the  origin  of  Lavinium — 
Hypothesis  of  Schwegler — The  process  of  assimila- 
tion by  which  ^neas  came  to  assume  an  Italian 
physiognomy — How  the  Greeks  came  to  communi- 
cate the  legend  to  the  Italians — In  what  manner 
it  was  received — The  Romans  not  hostile  to  foreign 
ideas  and  usages  —  The  influence  of  Greece  on 
Rome  in  early  times 133-145 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

III.  At  what  moment  did  the  legend  first  be- 
come known  to  the  Romans  1 — ]  t  is  first  mentioned 
at  the  time  of  the  war  with  Pyrrhus — The  import- 
ance it  takes  after  the  Punic  Wars — The  legend 
among  the  poets,  Nsevius — The  legend  among  the 
historians  and  scholiasts,  Cato,  Varro — The  legend 
among  the  artists — Why  w^as  it  more  spread  among 

the  Romans  than  among  the  Greeks  ?         .         .      146-160 

IV.  What  reason  had  Virgil  to  choose  the  legend 
of  ^Eneas  for  the  subject  of  his  poem  ? — The  his- 
torical epic  and  the  mythological  epic — The  /Eneicl 
is  both  a  mythological  and  an  historical  epic — 
Why  did  Virgil  prefer  ^neas  to  Romulus  ? — 
In  what  sense  may  the  JEneid  be  said  to  have 

been  popular  ? 160-171 


II.  ^NEAS  m  Sicily   ......     171-236 

I.  How  Virgil  came  to  know  Sicily — Pollion 
counsels  him  to  imitate  Theocritus — By  what 
qualities  Theocritus  must  have  pleased  Virgil — 
The  Moretum — Why  Virgil  did  not  continue  to 

write  realistic  poems— Sicily  in  the  Bucolics       .     172-180 

II.  Sicily  in  Virgil's  time— Character  of  the 
Greeks  of  Sicily— Why  they  were  attached  to 
Roman  rule— Sicily  ruined  and  pillaged  by 
Roman  governors — What  travellers  went  to  seek 
in  Sicily — Marvels  of  nature — Marvels  of  art — 
The  monuments  of  that  time — Public  teniDles — 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGES 

Private  galleries — Shrine  of  Heiiis — Taste  of  the 
Eomans  of  that  time  for  works  of  art — The  por- 
trait of  \^erres  drawn  by  Cicero — Attractions  of 
Sicily  for  Virgil 181-198 

III.  The  Third  Book  of  the  u^ncid—JEnesia  in 
Epirus — He  touches  at  Italy — Tarentum — He 
passes  into  Sicily — iEtna— The  isle  of  Ortigia — 
The  fountain  of  Arethusa — Agrigentum — What 
Virgil's  feelings  must  have  been  on  going  over 
the  ruins  of  Greek  cities  in  Sicily — Drepanum — 
Death  of  Anchises 198-216 

IV.  Return  of  ^neas  to  Sicily— Fifth  Book  of 
the  u^neicl  —  Mount  Eryx  — Temple  of  Venus 
Erycina — Funeral  games  in  honour  of  Anchises — 
Course  of  the  ships — Burning  of  the  fleet — 
Segesta — Departure  of  ^neas  for  Italy   .         .         216-236 

III.  OsTiA  AND  Lavinium  .....     236-289 

I.  The  two  parts  of  the  j^neicl — Character  of 
the  last  six  Books — Virgil  is  here  in  the  heart  of 
his  subject — Perfection  of  style — The  poet's  aim 
comes  out  better — Virgil's  patriotism — How  he 

has  grouped  all  Italy  around  his  work    .        .         236-245 

II.  iEneas  lands  on  the  shore  of  Ostia— Virgil's 
description  of  it — Its  aspect  in  our  days — How 
yEneas  knows  that  he  has  reached  the  end  of  his 
voyage — Miracle  of  the  eaten  tables — The  white 
sow  and  her  thirty  little  ones — Original  meaning 

of  this  legend,  and  the  changes  it  underwent  .         245-259 


CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

III.  Lavinium  —  Its  decadence  under  the 
Empire — AVorship  of  the  Penates — Vestiges  of 
the  ancient  city — Pratica — Outlook  from  the 
Borghese  Tower — The  plain  of  the  Latium — Latin 
and  Sabine  elements  in  the  Roman  city  .         .         259-275 


IV.  jrEneas  goes  to  see  Evander  at  Pallanteum — 
The  Trojan  camp  at  Ostia — It  is  besieged  and 
almost  taken  in  the  absence  of  the  chief — Burning 
of  the  ships — Episode  of  Nisus  and  Euryalus  .         27(5-289 


lY.  Laurentum 290-346 

I,  Tenth  Book  of  the  j^neid — Assembly  of  the 
gods — Return  of  /Eneas — War  in  Virgil's  poem — 
His  portrayal  of  the  different  Italic  races — Why 
he  did  not  paint  them  more  distinctly     .         .         290-301 


II.  Laurentum — How  the  old  town  disappeared 
—Where  could  it  have  been  situated  ? — Canal  of  the 
Stagno  di  Levante — The  Selva  Laurentina — The 
boars  of  Laurentum — Aspect  of  the  shore — 
Pliny's  villa 301-310 

III.  Tor  Paterno — Character  of  the  ruins  found 
there — The  villa  of  Commodus — March  of  /Eneas 
on  Laurentum — Ambush  of  Turnus — Probable 
situation  of  Laurentum 310-322 


CONTENTS.  XI 

PAGES 

IV,  The  palace  of  Latinus — How  Virgil  com- 
poses his  descriptions — Why  he  does  not  exactly 
reproduce  those  of  Homer — Mixture  of  different 
epochs— Unity  of  the  whole    ....         323-337 

V.  Combat  of  iEneas  and  Turnus  —  Artifices 
used  by  Virgil  to  defer  it  —  The  battle-field — 
Difference  between  the  fight  of  Jj^neas  with 
Turnus  and  that  of  Achilles  and  Hector  .         337-346 


V 


THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE 
AND  VIRGIL, 


CHAPTEE  I. 

HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE. 

One  cannot  read  Horace  without  longing  to  be 
acquainted  with  that  country  house  in  which  he  was 
so  happy.  Can  we  know  exactly  where  it  was  ?  Is 
it  possible  to  find  again,  not  the  very  stones  of  his 
villa,  which  time  has  doubtless  scattered,  but  the 
charming  spot  he  has  so  oft  described — those  lofty 
mountains  which  "  sheltered  his  goats  from  the  summer 
fires  ;  "  that  spring  by  which  he  was  wont  to  stretch  him- 
self in  the  day's  hot  hours ;  those  woods,  those  rivulets, 
those  valleys — in  fine,  that  landscape  which  he  had  before 
his  eyes  during  the  longer  and  better  portion  of  his 
life  ?  People  have  been  asking  themselves  this  question 
ever  since  the  Eenaissance,  and  its  solution  might  have 
been  early  foreseen.  Towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century  some  learned  men,  who  had  started  in  search 
of  Horace's  house,  surmised  the  place  where  it  should  be 
looked  for,  but  their  indications  being  vague,  and  not 
always  based  on  solid  proofs,  they  failed  to  produce  a 


2  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

general  conviction.  Besides,  there  was  no  lack  of  per- 
sons who  did  not  wish  to  be  convinced.  In  every 
corner  of  the  Sabine  Hills  some  village  sage  vocifer- 
ously claimed  for  his  district  the  honour  of  having 
sheltered  Horace,  and  would  not  hear  of  its  being 
bereft  of  it.  And  this  is  how  his  house  came  to  be 
located  at  Tibur,  at  Cures,  at  Eeate — everywhere,  in 
short,  but  where  it  ought  to  be. 

The  problem  was  definitely  solved  in  the  second 
half  of  the  last  century  by  a  Frenchman,  Abbe 
Capmartin  de  Chaupy.  He  was  one  of  those  who  go 
to  Rome  to  spend  a  few  months,  and  remain  there  all 
their  lives.  When  he  had  once  resolved  to  find  the  site 
of  Horace's  house,  he  did  not  spare  himself  trouble.^  He 
went  over  nearly  the  whole  of  Italy,  studying  monuments, 
reading  inscriptions,  questioning  the  people  of  the 
country,  and  personally  investigating  the  sites  which  best 
answered  to  the  descriptions  of  the  poet.  He  travelled  by 
short  stages  on  a  horse,  which,  if  we  are  to  believe  him, 
by  dint  of  being  taken  to  so  many  antiquities  had  almost 
become  an  antiquarian  itself.  This  animal,  he  tells  us, 
went  to  ruins  of  his  own  accord,  and  his  fatigue  seemed 
to  vanish  directly  he  found  himself  on  the  pavement  of 
some  ancient  way.  Capmartin  de  Chaupy  wrote  three 
large  volumes  of  nearly  five  hundred  pages  each  ^  about 

1  It  must  be  mentioned  that  Capmartin  de  Chaupy  was  passionately- 
fond  of  Horace,  and  found  reasons  for  everything  in  his  favourite 
author.  He  lived  long  enough  to  witness  the  French  Revolution,  and 
it  is  said  that  it  did  not  take  him  by  surprise.  Horace  had  taught 
him  to  foresee  it,  and  he  willingly  pointed  out  the  places  in  his  works 
where  it  was  predicted  in  express  terms. 

2  D^couverte  de  la  maismi  de  camiiagne  d^ Horace,  par  1' Abbe  Capmartin 
de  Chaupy,  Rome,  1767-1769. 


hoeace's  country  house.  3 

his  journeys,  and  the  results  to  which  his  indefatigable 
labours  had  led  him.  His  subject — the  site  of  Horace's 
house — could  not  be  expected  to  fill  so  many  pages, 
and  the  author  often  turns  aside  to  speak  on  other 
matters.  He  writes  how  he  travelled,  stopping  at 
each  step,  and  often  leaving  the  highroad  in  order  to 
plunge  into  byways.  He  spares  us  nothing,  but 
elucidates,  in  passing,  obscure  points  of  geography  and 
history,  notices  inscriptions,  finds  lost  towns  again,  and 
fixes  the  direction  of  ancient  roads.  This  manner  of 
proceeding,  then  much  in  vogue  among  the  learned, 
nearly  deprived  Chaupy  of  the  honour  of  his  dis- 
covery. De  Sanctis,  a  Eoman  savant,  who  had  heard 
his  labours  spoken  of,  started  on  the  same  track,  and 
easily  out-stripping  him,  published  a  little  dissertation 
on  the  same  subject  which  was  favourably  received.^ 
This  was  a  great  grief  to  the  poor  Abbe,  who  com- 
plained bitterly.  Happily,  his  three  volumes,  which 
appeared  almost  immediately  afterwards,  brought  over 
public  opinion  to  his  side,  and  few  now  deny  him  the 
glory  of  having  found  Horace's  country  house,  of  which 
he  was  so  proud. 

Eoughly  speaking,  this  is  how  he  sets  to  work 
to  prove  to  the  most  incredulous  that  he  is  not 
mistaken.  He  first  establishes  the  fact  that  Horace 
had  not  a  plurality  of  domains,  since  he  himself 
tells  us  that  he  possesses  only  the  Sabine  estate, 
and  that  this  estate  is  enough  for  him :  satis  beatus 
unicis  Sabinis!^  It  follows  therefore  that  all  his 
descriptions  must  refer  to  this  estate  and  be  applicable 

^  Dissertazione  sojn-a  la  villa  di  Orazzio  Flacco,  dell'  abbate  Dominico 
de  Sauctis.  '^  Carm.,  II.  18,  14. 


4  THE  COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

to  it.  This  basis  fixed,  Chaupy  visits  in  turn  every 
spot  on  which  it  has  been  sought  to  place  the  poet's 
house,  and  has  no  difficulty  in  showing  that  not  one  of 
them  quite  agrees  with  the  pictures  he  has  drawn  of  it. 
It  can  only  be  to  the  east  of  Tivoli  and  near  Vicovaro, 
as  this  district  alone  corresponds  exactly  with  the 
lines  of  Horace.  More  striking  and  more  conclusively 
convincinGj  still  is  the  fact  that  all  the  modern  names 
here  have  kept  their  likeness  to  the  ancient  ones*  We 
know  from  Horace  that  the  most  important  town  in 
the  vicinity  of  his  house,  whither  his  farmers  repaired 
on  every  market-day,  was  called  Varia.  The  table  of 
Pentinger  also  speaks  of  Varia,  placing  it  eight  miles 
from  Tibur.  Well,  eight  miles  from  Tivoli,  the  ancient 
Tibur,  we  to-day  find  Vicovaro,  which  has  kept  its  ancient 
name  (Vicus  Varia)  nearly  unaltered.  Again,  at  the 
foot  of  Vicovaro  flows  a  little  brook  called  the  Licenza  : 
it  is,  with  very  slight  change,  the  Digentia  of  Horace. 
He  tells  us  also  that  this  brook  waters  the  small  town 
of  Mandela.  To-day  Mandela  has  become  Bardela, 
which  is  almost  the  same,  and  to  make  assurance 
doubly  sure,  an  inscription  found  there  completely 
restores  to  it  its  ancient  name.^  Lastly,  the  high 
Mount  Lucre  talis,  which  shaded  the  poet's  house,  is  the 
Corgnaleto,  called  Mons  Lucretii  in  the  charts  of  the 
Middle  Ages.^  It  cannot  be  chance  alone  that  has 
brought  together  in  the  same  locality  all  the  names  of 
places  mentioned  by  the  poet;  neither  is  it  chance 
that   has   made   this   canton   of   the   Sabine   Hills   to 


1  Orelli,  Inscr.  lat.,  104. 

2  "Vie  d'Horace,"  par  Noel  des  Vergers,  p.  27,  in  Didot's  Horace, 


HORACE  S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  5 

correspond  so  perfectly  with  all  his  descriptions.  It  is 
certain,  then,  that  his  house  was  in  this  region,  watered 
by  the  Licenza,  on  the  slopes  of  the  Corgnaleto,  not  far 
from  Vicovaro  and  Bardela.  It  is  thither  we  must 
send  the  worshippers  of  Horace  (if  any  yet  remain) 
if  they  would  make  a  pious  pilgrimage  to  his  villa. 


L 


HOW  HORACE  CAME  TO  KNOW  M^CENAS  —  CHARACTER 
OF  M^CENAS — LIFE  IN  HIS  HOUSE — THE  PALACE 
OF  THE  ESQUILINE. 

Before  taking  them  there,  let  us  briefly  recall  how  he 
became  its  owner;  for  this  is  an  interesting  chapter  of 
his  history. 

We  know  that  after  having  fought  at  Philippi  as  a 
military  tribune  in  the  Eepublican  army,  he  returned  to 
Eome.  where  the  gates  were  opened  to  him  during  an 
amnesty.  This  return  must  have  been  most  sad.  He  had 
lost  his  father,  whom  he  tenderly  loved,  and  had  been 
deprived  of  his  estate.  The  great  hopes  he  cherished 
when,  at  twenty  years  of  age  he  had  seen  himself 
distinguished  by  Brutus  and  put  at  the  head  of  a  legion, 
were  rudely  dissipated.  He  said  "they  had  cut  his 
wings."  ^  He  fell  from  all  his  ambitious  aims  into  the 
miseries  of  an  embarrassed  existence,  and,  in  order  to 
live,  the  late  military  tribune  had  to  buy  himself  a 
government  clerkship.  Yet  poverty  was  not  without 
its  use,  if,  as  he  asserts,  it  gave  him  the  courage  to  write 

"*  Decisis  hu7nilempennis — EpisL,\\.  2,  50. 


6  THE   COUNTRY  OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

verses.^  These  verses  met  with  great  success  ;  he  had 
adopted  the  right  way  to  attract  public  notice :  he  spoke 
ill  of  persons  of  credit.  His  Satires,  in  which  he  expressed 
himself  freely  in  an  age  when  nobody  dared  to  speak, 
having  made  a  noise,  Maecenas,  who  was  curious, 
wanted  to  see  him,  and  had  him  introduced  by  Varius 
and  by  Virgil.  These  facts  are  known  to  all:  it  is  need- 
less to  insist  on  them. 

Maecenas  was  then  one  of  the  most  important  person- 
ages of  the  Empire,  and  shared  with  Agrippa  the  favour 
of  Octavius.  But  their  behaviour  was  very  different. 
While  Agrippa,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  born  in  an  obscure 
family,  loved  to  adorn  himself  with  the  first  dignities 
of  the  State,  Maecenas,  who  belonged  to  the  highest 
nobility  of  Etruria,  remained  in  the  shade.  Only  twice 
in  his  life  was  he  officially  charged  with  the  exercise  of 
public  authority:  in  717,  during  the  embarrassments 
caused  by  the  war  in  Sicily  against  Sextus  Pompeius ; 
and  in  723,  when  Octavius  went  to  fight  Antony.  But 
he  bore  a  new  title  which  left  him  outside  the  hierarchy 
of  ancient  functionaries.^  But  he  would  accept  no  more 
honours.  He  obstinately  refused  to  enter  the  Senate, 
and  remained  to  the  end  a  simple  knight,  humbly  tak- 
ing a  place  below  all  those  sons  of  great  lords,  who 
were  quickly  raised  to  the  highest  offices  through  family 
influence.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  this  dis- 
interestedness, as  rare  then  as  it  is  now.     His  contem- 


^  Paupertas  impulit  audax  Ut  versus  faccrem — Epist.   II,  2,  51. 

^  It  is  generally  thought  that  he  was  named  by  Octavius  Prefect 
of  Rome  {prce/ectus  urbi),  but  a  commentator  of  Virgil,  discovered  at 
Verona,  calls  him  prefect  of  the  praetorium,  and  M.  Mommsen  thinks 
this  was  really  the  title  he  bore,  and  that  it  was  created  for  him. 


HOKACE  S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  7 

poraries,  while  loading  him  with  praises,  have  omitted 
to  tell  us  the  reason  of  it.  Perhaps  they  themselves 
found  it  difficult  to  fathom  it.  So  refined  a  politician 
does  not  readily  reveal  the  motives  for  his  conduct. 
It  has  usually  been  attributed  to  a  kind  of  natural 
idleness  or  indolence,  which  made  him  dread  the  stir 
of  business,  and  this  explanation  is  near  enough  to 
the  mark  if  not  exaggerated.  An  impartial  historian 
tells  us  that  he  knew  how  to  shake  off  his  torpor 
when  action  was  necessary :  Uhi  res  vigilantiam 
exigeret,  sane  exsomnis,  providens  atque  agendi  sciens.^ 
But  he  kept  himself  in  reserve  for  certain  occasions,  and 
did  not  deem  everything  in  human  affairs  worthy  to 
occupy  him.  He  had  indeed  both  talent  and  taste  for 
politics,  and  that  he  never  entirely  weaned  himself  from 
them  is  proved  by  the  circumstance  that  Horace  one 
day  felt  it  necessary  to  say  to  him :  "  Cease  to  let  thy 
repose  be  troubled  by  the  cares  of  public  business. 
Since  thou  hast  the  happiness  to  be  a  simple  private 
person  like  ourselves,  do  not  concern  thyself  too  much 
with  the  dangers  that  may  threaten  the  Empire."  ^  He 
busied  himself  with  them,  then,  too  zealously  to  please 
his  Epicurean  friends.  Although  without  a  political 
office,  he  had  his  eyes  open  to  the  manoeuvres  of  poli- 
tical parties,  to  the  preparations  of  Parthia,  of  Cantabria, 
and  of  Dacia.  He  liked  to  speak  his  mind  touching  the 
great  questions  on  which  depended  the  peace  of  the 
world  ;  but  his  opinion  once  given,  he  withdrew,  and 
left  to  others  the  care  of  putting  it  into  execu- 
tion. He  reserved  himself  for  things  that  asked 
but  a  single  effort  of  thought.     To  prepare,  to   com- 

1  Velleius  Paterculus,  II.  87,  2.  ^  Cann.,  III.  8. 


8  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VlEGlL. 

bine,  to  reflect,  to  foresee  the  consequence  of  events, 
to  surprise  the  intentions  of  men,  to  direct  towards  a 
single  end  contrary  wills  and  opposed  interests ;  to 
create  circumstances  and  turn  them  to  account — this, 
assuredly,  is  one  of  the  highest  applications  of  the  intelli- 
gence, one  of  the  most  pleasurable  exercises  of  the  mind. 
The  charm  of  this  speculative  statecraft  is  so  great  that, 
in  passing  from  counsel  to  action,  one  seems  to  lower 
oneself.  The  execution  of  great  projects  calls  for  tedious 
precautions,  and  bears  in  its  train  a  crowd  of  common- 
place cares.  Yet  a  statesman  is  only  complete  when  he 
knows  both  how  to  conceive  and  how  to  act ;  when  he  is 
capable  of  realising  what  he  has  imagined  ;  when  he  is 
not  content  with  taking  broad  views  of  things,  but  can 
descend  to  details.  It  seems  to  me  then  that  the  friends 
of  Maecenas,  who  praised  him  for  avoiding  all  these  petty 
troubles  and  choosing  only  to  be  the  most  important 
adviser  of  Augustus,  honoured  him  for  being,  in  reality, 
merely  an  imperfection. 

They  are  mistaken,  too,  I  think,  when  they  represent 
him  as  a  sage  who  fears  turmoil,  who  loves  silence,  and 
who  seeks  to  escape  from  applause  and  glory.  There  was, 
perhaps,  less  modesty  than  pride  in  his  resolve.  He 
disliked  the  crowd,  and  took  a  kind  of  insolent  pleasure 
in  setting  himself  at  variance  with  general  opinion  and 
in  not  thinking  as  everybody  else  thought.  Horace  tells 
us  that  lie  braved  the  prejudice  of  birth,  which  was  so 
strong  around  him,  and  that  he  never  asked  his  friends 
of  what  family  they  came.^  He  feared  death,  and,  what 
is  more  common,  he  dared  to  own  it.-    But,  on  the  other 

1  SaL,  I.  6,  7. 

2  The  lines   in  which   Maecenas   owned  that  he  feared  death  are 


HORACE  S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  VJ 

hand,  he  felt  but  little  dread  for  that  which  follows  death. 
The  cares  of  sepulture,  the  torment  of  so  many,  left 
him  quite  indifferent.  "  I  don't  bother  about  a  tomb," 
said  he,  "if  you  neglect  to  bury  anyone,  nature  sees 

to  it." 

^^ Nee  tumiduni  euro  :  seyelit  natura  relictos."  ^ 

This  line  is  certainly  the  finest  he  has  left  us.     It 
is  in  the  same  spirit  of  haughty  contrariety  that  he 
affected  to  disdain  all  those  honours  which  his  friends 
used  to  run  after.     He  well  knew  that  this  contempt  of 
opinion  was  not  a  thing  to  mar  his  renown.    The  crowd 
is  so  constituted  that  it  does  not  love,  but  cannot  help 
admiring,  those  who   differ  from  it;    hence  there  are 
people  who  hide  themselves  in  order  to  be  sought,  and 
who  think  that  one  is  sometimes  more  conspicuous  in 
retirement  than  in  power.     Maecenas  was  perhaps  of 
the  number,  and  it  may  be  suspected  that  his  attitude 
was  not  entirely  devoid  of  coquettish  calculation.     Not 
only   did   he   suffer    little    loss    from    the   vokmtary 
obscurity  to  which  he  condemned  himself — he  might 
even  think  that  it  conduced  to  his  glory  more  than  the 
most   brilliant   dignities.      When  nothing   remains   of 
statesmen  but  a  great  name,  and  one  thinks  they  have 
done  much  without  knowing  exactly  what  it  is  they 
have  done,  one  is  often  tempted  to  attribute  to  them 

known  to  all,  thanks  to  the  translation  which  La  Fontaine  has  made 
of  them  in  his  Fables  : — 

"  Mecenasfut  un  galant  homme: 
II  a  dit  quelque  part :  *  Qu'on  me  rend  impotent, 
Cul-de-jatte,  goutteux,  manchot,  pourvu,  qu'en  sommc, 
Je  vive,  c'est  assez  ;  je  suis  plus  que  content  J  " 
'  Sen.,  Ejnst.,  92,  35. 


10  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   YIRGIL. 

that  which  does  not  belong  to  them,  and  to  believe 
them  to  be  more  important  than  they  are.  This  is 
precisely  what  has  happened  in  the  case  of  Maecenas. 
Two  centuries  afterwards,  Dion  Cassius,  an  historian  of 
the  Empire,  attributed  to  him  a  long  speech,  in  which 
he  is  supposed  to  suggest  to  Augustus  all  the  reforms 
which  that  prince  afterwards  carried  out.  According 
to  this,  the  honour  of  those  institutions,  which  through 
so  many  centuries  have  governed  the  world,  is  due,  not 
to  the  Emperor,  but  to  the  Eoman  knight.  We  see 
then,  that  if  Maecenas  remained  in  the  shade 
from  calculation,  this  calculation  was  completely 
successful,  and  that  his  clever  conduct  at  the  same 
time  assured  his  tranquillity  during  life,  and  has 
increased  his  reputation  after  death. 

Whatever  might  have  been  the  reasons  which  led  him 
to  shun  public  life,  it  is  sure  that,  while  refusing  honours, 
he  did  not  mean  to  doom  himself  to  solitude.  He  certainly 
was  not  one  of  those  philosophers  who,  like  the  sage  of 
Lucretius,  have  no  other  distraction  than  to  look  from 
"  the  height  of  their  austere  retreat  upon  men  groping 
along  the  road  of  life."  He  intended  to  lead  a  joyous 
existence,  and,  above  all,  to  gather  round  him  a  society 
of  choice  spirits.  But  he  would  not  have  found  this  so 
easy  had  he  busied  himself  more  with  public  affairs. 
A  politician  is  not  free  to  choose  his  friends  as  he 
pleases.  He  cannot  shut  his  doors  to  important  person- 
ages, bores  though  they  sometimes  are.  The  position 
which  Maecenas  had  made  for  himself  allowed  of  his 
receiving  only  clever  people.  At  his  house  he  gathered 
round  him  poets  and  great  men.  The  poets  came 
from  all  ranks  of  society ;  the  great  lords  were  gleaned 


Horace's  country  house.  11 

from  every  political  party.  Side  by  side  with  Aristius 
Fusciis  and  the  two  Viscus,  friends  of  Octavius,  were 
seen  Servius  Sulpicius,  son  of  the  great  jurist  so  highly 
praised  by  Cicero,  and  Bibulus,  who  was  probably  the 
grandson  of  Cato.  It  may  be  asked  whether  that 
fusion  of  parties,  which  brought  about  the  oblivion  of 
past  hatreds,  that  union  of  politicians  of  every  shade  of 
opinion  upon  a  new  ground,  which  made  the  honour 
and  strength  of  the  rule  of  Augustus,  did  not  begin  at 
Maecenas'  house  ?  Among  the  poets  whom  he  had  drawn 
to  him  are  found  the  two  greatest  of  that  age.  He  did 
not  wait  to  attach  them  to  him  until  they  had  produced 
their  masterpieces ;  but  foretold  their  future  greatness 
by  their  maiden  efforts.  This  does  honour  to  his  taste. 
Certain  details  of  the  Bucolics  of  Virgil  had  caused  him 
to  foresee  the  great  touches  of  the  Georgics  and  the 
JEneid,  and  through  the  imperfections  of  Horace's 
Upodes  he  forecast  the  Odes.  And  thus  it  was  that  this 
house,  so  obstinately  closed  to  so  many  great  personages, 
was  early  opened  to  the  Mantuan  peasant  and  to  the 
son  of  the  Venusian  slave. 

These  men  of  letters  and  great  lords  passed  a  very 
pleasant  time  together.  Maecenas'  fortune  allowed  him 
to  gratify  all  his  tastes,  and  give  those  who  surrounded 
him  a  liberal  existence.  The  Eoman  quidnuncs  would 
have  dearly  liked  to  know  what  went  on  in  that  distin- 
guished but  exclusive  company.  So  should  we,  and  we 
often  long  to  imitate  the  bore  who,  to  Horace's  great 
annoyance,  one  day  followed  him  all  along  the  Sacred 
Way,  to  make  him  talk  a  little.  We  should  like  to  get 
from  him  some  particulars  about  those  clever  men  with 
whom  he  used  to  forecather,  and  we  search  his  works  to 


12  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

see  whether  they  will  not  tell  us  something  about  life 
in  Maecenas'  house.  Unfortunately  for  us,  Horace  is 
discreet,  and  only  lets  fall  from  time  to  time  a  few 
confidences,  which  we  hasten  to  gather.  One  of  his 
shortest  and  weakest  Satires,  the  eighth  of  the  First  Book, 
offers  us  a  sample  of  this  kind,  because  it  was  com- 
posed when  Maecenas  took  possession  of  his  house  on 
the  Esquiline.  This  was  an  event  of  importance  both 
to  the  master  and  his  friends.  He  desired  to  build  a 
house  worthy  of  his  new  fortune  without  paying  too 
dearly  for  it.  The  problem  was  difficult,  yet  he  solved 
it  admirably.  The  Esquiline  was  then  a  wild  desert 
hill  where  slaves  were  buried  and  capital  punishment 
carried  out.  No  one  in  Eome  would  have  consented  to 
dwell  there.  Msecenas  who,  as  we  have  just  seen,  took 
pleasure  in  doing  nothing  like  anybody  else,  bought 
large  grounds  there,  getting  them  very  cheap,  planted 
magnificent  gardens,  whose  reputation  lasted  nearly  as 
long  as  the  Empire,  and  had  a  large  tower  built, 
commanding  all  the  horizon.  It  was  doubtless  a  great 
surprise  for  Eome  when  these  sumptuous  buildings 
were  seen  rising  in  the  worst-famed  spot  of  the  city ;  but 
here  the  spirit  of  contradiction,  already  remarked  in 
Maecenas,  served  him  well.  The  Esquiline,  rid  of  its 
filth,  turned  out  to  be  healthier  than  the  other  quarters  ; 
and  we  are  told  that  when  AuG^ustus  caudit  a  fever 
on  the  Palatine  he  went  to  live  for  a  few  days  in 
Maecenas'  tower,  in  order  to  treat  and  cure  it.  This 
afforded  the  poet  an  opportunity  to  compose  his  eighth 
Satire.  In  it  he  celebrates  this  marvellous  change, 
which  has  turned  the  cut-throat  Esquiline  into  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  spots  in  Eome  : — 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  13 

"  iVu7ic  licet  Esquiliis  habitare  saluhrihus,  atque 
Agger c  in  aprico  spatiariJ' 

And  that  tlie  charm  of  these  gardens  and  the  magni- 
ficence of  these  terraces  may  be  the  better  appreciated 
by  contrast,  he  recalls  the  scenes  that   used   to   take 
place  in  the  same  spot,  when  it  was  the  trysting-place 
of  robbers  and  witches.      I   suppose  this  little  work 
must  have   been   read    during    the    feasts   given    by 
Msecenas  to  his  friends  when  he  inaugurated  his  new 
house,  and  as  it  had  at  least  the  merit  of  timeliness,  it 
was  probably  much  appreciated  by  them.   It  may  there- 
fore give  us  some  idea  of  what  was  liked  and  applauded 
in  that  elegant  society.     Perhaps  those  who  read  the 
Satire  to  the   end,  bearing  in  mind  the   occasion   for 
which  it  was  composed  and  the  people  who  were  to 
listen  to  it,  will  feel  some  surprise.     It  ends  with  a 
rather  strong  pleasantry,  which  it  would  be  difficult  for 
me  to  translate.     Here  then  is  what  amused  the  guests 
at   the  table  of  Maecenas.      Here  then  is  what  those 
clever  men  liked  to  listen  to  at  Maecenas'  feasts.^     Do 
not  let  us  be  too  much  astonished.     The  great  classic 
ages  we   admire   are   generally   the   outcome  of  rude 
epochs,  and  often  in  their  first  }'ears  they  retain  some- 
thing  of   their    origin.      Beneath    all    their    delicacy 
there  remains  a  substratum  of  brutal  vigour  which  easily 
mounts  to  the  surface  again.     What  broad  things  were 
said  in  the  conversation  of  people  of  the  seventeenth 

'  Let  us  not  forget  that  it  is  the  same  society  who,  in  the  journey- 
to  Brindisi  {Sat.,  I.  5)  took  so  much  pleasure  in  the  insipid  dispute 
of  two  buffoons.  It  is  very  difficult  to  understand  how,  after  listening 
to  these  gross  pleasantries,  Horace  can  tell  us,  "We  passed  quite  a 
charming  evening." 


14  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

century,  nobody  feeling  alarmed,  which  could  not  be 
heard  to-day  without  a  certain  embarrassment !  How 
many  customs  there  were  which  to  us  seem  coarse,  but 
which  then  appeared  the  most  natural  things  in  the 
world  !  It  was  later  on  that  manners  acquired  their  final 
polish,  and  language  became  scrupulous  and  refined. 
Unfortunately  this  progress  is  often  paid  for  by  decad- 
ence, and  the  mind,  during  the  process  of  polishing,  risks 
becoming  enfeebled  and  savourless.  Let  us  then  not 
complain  of  these  few  outbreaks  of  a  nature  not  yet 
entirely  reduced  to  rule.  They  are  witnesses  at  least  to 
the  energy  abiding  at  the  root  of  characters  by  which 
art  and  letters  profit.  The  age  of  Ovid  always  comes 
soon  enough. 

We  see  that  at  the  moment  in  question  Horace  held 
an  important  place  in  this  society.  That  he  did  not 
attain  to  it  immediately  we  know  from  himself.  He 
tells  us  that  when  Virgil  took  him  to  Maecenas  for  the 
first  time,  he  lost  countenance,  and  could  only  say  a 
few  disconnected  words  to  him.""  The  reason  is  that  he 
was  not  like  those  fine  talkers  who  have  always  some- 
thing to  say.  He  was  only  clever  with  people  whom 
he  knew.  As  for  Maecenas,  he  was  one  of  those  silent 
ones  "  to  whom  belongs  the  world."  He  answered 
but  a  few  words,  and  it  is  probable  that  they 
parted  not  very  well  pleased  with  each  other,  since 
they  remained  nine  months  without  wanting  to  meet 
again.  But  this  first  coolness  over,  the  poet  showed 
what  he  was.  Once  intimate,  he  made  his  protector 
admire  all  the  resources  of  his  mind,  made  him  love  all 

1  Sat.,  I.  6,  56. 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  15 

the  delicacy  of  his  character.  So  Maecenas  loaded  him 
with  kindness  and  benefits.  In  707,  a  year  after  he 
became  acquainted  with  him,  he  took  him  on  that  journey 
to  Brindisi,  whither  he  was  going  to  conclude  peace 
between  Antony  and  Octavius.  A  few  years  later, 
probably  about  720,  he  gave  him  the  estate  in  the 
Sabine  Hills. 

II. 

WAS  HORACE  REALLY  A  LOVER  OF  NATURE — THE  SECOND 
EPODE — HOW  RESIDENCE  IN  ROME  BECAME  UNBEAR- 
ABLE TO  HIM — THE  CONSEQUENCES  FOR  HIM  OF  HIS 
INTIMACY  WITH  MiECENAS — BEGGARS  AND  BORES — 
THE  JOY  HE  MUST  HAVE  FELT  WHEN  MAECENAS  GAVE 
HIM  THE  ESTATE  IN  THE  SABINE  HILLS. 

The  circumstances  which  led  Maecenas  to  make  his 
friend  this  handsome  present  are  not  well  known  to 
us ;  but  a  clever  man  like  him  doubtless  possessed 
that  quality  which  Seneca  required  before  all  in  an 
intelligent  benefactor — he  knew  how  to  give  season- 
ably. He  thought,  then,  that  this  estate  would  please 
Horace  very  much,  and  he  certainly  was  not  mistaken- 
Does  this  mean  that  Horace  was  altogether  like  his 
friend  Virgil,  and  that  he  was  only  happy  when  among 
the  fields  ?  I  do  not  believe  it.  Without  doubt  Horace 
also  liked  to  be  in  the  country;  he  liked  the  fields 
and  knew  how  to  portray  them.  Nature,  discreetly 
drawn,  holds  a  great  place  in  his  poetry.  He  uses  it, 
like  Lucretius,  to  give  more  force  and  clearness  to  the 
exposition  of  his  philosophical  ideas.  The  recurrence 
of  the  seasons  shows  him  that  one  must  neither  cherish 


16  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

hopes  too  vast,  nor  too  enduring  sorrows.^  The  great 
trees  bowed  by  the  winds  of  winter,  the  lightning- 
smitten  mountains,  teach  him  that  the  highest  fortunes 
are  not  safe  from  unforeseen  accidents.^  The  return  of 
spring,  "trembling  in  the  zephyr-shaken  leaves,"^ 
serves  him  to  restore  courage  to  the  desperate  by 
showing  them  that  evil  days  do  not  last.  When  he 
desires  to  counsel  some  sad  spirit  to  forget  the  miseries 
of  life,  in  order  to  teach  his  little  moral  he  leads  him 
to  the  fields,  near  the  source  of  a  sacred  fount,  at  the 
spot  "  where  the  pine  and  the  poplar  mingle  together 
their  hospitable  shade."  *  These  pictures  are  charming 
and  the  memory  of  all  men  of  letters  has  preserved 
them,  yet  they  have  not  the  depth  of  those  offered  to  us 
by  Virgil  and  Lucretius.  Horace  will  never  pass  for 
one  of  those  great  lovers  of  Nature  whose  happiness 
is  to  lose  themselves  in  her.  -JHe  was  too  witty,  too 
indifferent,  too  rational  for  that.  I  add  that  up  to  a 
certain  point  his  philosophy  turned  him  from  it.  He 
several  times  rebelled  against  the  madness  of  those  mor- 
bid minds  who  are  forever  runnincj  about  the  world 
in  search  of  internal  peace.  Peace  is  neither  in  the 
repose  of  the  fields  nor  in  the  bustle  of  travelling.  It 
may  be  found  everywhere  when  the  mind  is  calm  and 
the  heart  healthy.  The  legitimate  conclusion  of  this 
moral  is  that  we  carry  our  happiness  within  us,  and 
that  when  one  lives  in  town  it  is  not  necessary  to 
leave  it  in  order  to  be  happy. 

It  seemed  to  him  then  that  those  people  who  pre- 


'  Carm.,   IJ.    9,    1.  2  jj^-^^^  n^  iq,  9. 

3  Jbid,,  I.    23,  5.  4  j^i^^^  ii_  3^  Q^ 


Horace's  countey  house.  17 

tended  to  be  passionately  ,  fond  of  the  country,  and 
who  affected  to  say  that  there  alone  one  can  live,  went 
much  too  far,  and  on  one  occasion  he  very  slyly  laughs 
at  them.  One  of  his  most  charming  Epodes,  the  work 
of  his  youth,  contains  the  liveliest  and  perhaps  the 
most  complete  eulogy  of  rustic  life  that  was  ever 
penned.  "  Happy,"  he  tells  us,  "  he  who,  far  from  affairs, 
like  the  men  of  old,  ploughs  with  his  own  oxen  the  field 
his  fathers  tilled :  "  and  once  launched,  he  never  stops. 
All  the  pleasures  of  the  country  are  reviewed  one  after 
another.  Nothing  is  wanting ;  neither  the  chase,  nor 
fishing,  nor  seed-time,  nor  harvest,  nor  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  one's  flocks  graze,  nor  of  slumbering  on  the  grass, 
"  while  the  water  murmurs  in  the  brook  and  the  birds 
moan  in  the  trees."  One  would  think  he  meant  to 
reconstruct  in  his  own  manner  and  with  the  same 
sincerity  the  beautiful  passage  of  Virgil : 

"  0  fortunatos  nimium^  sua  si  bona  norint. 
Agricolas ! " 

But  let  us  wait  till  the  end :  the  last  lines  have  a 
surprise  in  store  for  us ;  they  teach  us,  to  our  amaze- 
ment, that  it  is  not  Horace  we  have  been  listening 
to.  "Thus  spoke  the  usurer  Alfius,"  he  tells  us; 
"immediately  resolved  to  become  a  countryman,  he 
gets  in  all  his  money  at  the  Ides.  Then  he  changes 
his  mind,  and  seeks  a  new  investment  at  the  Kalends."^ 
The  poet,  then,  has  been  laughing  at  us,  and  what  adds 
cruelty  to  his  pleasantry,  the  reader  only  perceives  it 
at  the  end,  and  remains  a  dupe  down  to  the  last  line. 
Of  all  the  reasons  that  have  been  given  in  explanation 

1  Epode  2. 
B 


18  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   ANt)   VIRGIL. 

of  this  Epode,  only  one  seems  to  me  natural  and 
probable.  He  was  irritated  at  seeing  so  many  people 
frigidly  admiring  the  country.  He  wanted  to  laugh  at 
the  expense  of  those  who,  having  no  personal  opinion, 
thought  themselves  obliged  to  assume  every  fashionable 
taste  and  exaG^C!:erate  it.^  And  we  too  have  to  suffer 
these  empty  enconiums  on  the  beauties  of  Nature  from 
those  who  go  to  visit  the  glaciers  and  the  mountains 
solely  because  it  is  "  the  thing  "  to  have  seen  them,  and 
we  can  understand  the  ill-temper  these  conventional 
enthusiasms  must  have  aroused  in  an  honest  and 
accurate  mind  that  cared  only  for  the  truth. 

But  if  Horace  did  not  possess  all  the  ardour  of  the 
Banker  Alfius  for  the  country,  if  he  lived  willingly 
in  Eome,  it  was  because  he  did  not  remain  there 
always.  Then,  as  now,  people  took  good  care  not  to 
stay  there  during  those  burning  months  "  which  made 
so  much  work  for  the  undertaker  of  funeral  pomps  and 
his  black  lictors."  ^  From  the  moment  Austcr,  "  heavy 
as  lead/'^  began  to  blow,  all  who  could  do  so  went 
away.  So  did  Horace.  While  the  rich  dragged  a 
numerous  attendance  in  their  train,  were  preceded  by 
Numidian  courtiers,  and  accompanied  by  gladiators  to 
defend  and  philosophers  to  amuse  them,  he,  being 
poor,  jumped  upon  the  back  of  a  short-tailed  mule,  put 
his  scanty  baggage  behind  him,  and  went  gaily  on  his 
way.^  The  goal  of  his  journeys  was  probably  not 
always  the  same.     In  the  mountains  of  Latium  and  the 

^  Some  critics  would  see  in  this  Epoch  a  parody  of  the  Georgics.  I 
do  not  believe  it.  At  most,  Horace's  raillery  could  only  reach  those 
who  thought  thumselves  obliged  to  exagojerate  the  ideas  of  Virgil. 

»  Epist.,  I.  7,  5.  3  Sat.,  II.  6,  18.  ^  Ibid.,  I.  6,  105. 


Horace's  country  house.  19 

Sabina,  "along  the  slopes  of  the  Appenines,  by  the 
borders  of  the  sea,  there  is  no  lack  of  pleasant  and 
healthy  spots.  Thither  go  the  Eomans  of  to-day,  to 
pass  the  time  of  the  malaria."  ^  Horace  doubtless 
visited  them  also ;  but  he  had  his  preferences,  which  he 
expresses  with  great  vivacity,  putting  before  all  the 
rest  Tibur  and  Tarentum,  two  places  very  distant  and 
very  different  from  each  other,  but  which  seem  to  have 
had  an  equal  share  of  his  affection.  He  probably  often 
returned  to  them,  and  although  tastes  change  with  age, 
we  have  proof  that  he  remained  faithful  to  the  last 
to  this  affection  of  his  youth. 

Despite  these  yearly  rovings,  which  sometimes  took 
him  to  the  extremities  of  Italy,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  Horace  long  remained  but  a  lukewarm  friend  of 
the  country.  He  had  not  yet  a  villa  of  his  own,  and 
perhaps  he  was  not  sorry.  He  took  a  willing  part  in 
the  distractions  of  the  great  town,  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
only  left  it  during  the  months  when  it  is  unwise  to 
stop  there.  Yet  a  moment  came  when  these  journeys, 
from  being  a  mere  amusement,  a  passing  pleasure, 
became  for  him  an  imperious  necessity ;  when  Eoman 
life  was  so  wearisome  and  hateful,  that,  like  his  friend 
Bullatius,  he  felt  a  craving  to  hide  himself  in  some 
lonely  townlet,  and  there  "  forget  everybody  and  make 
himself  forgotten." 

This  feeling  is  very  apparent  in  some  parts  of  his 
works,  and  it  is  very  easy  to  see  how  it  arose. 

A   wise   man,   instead    of    uselessly   bewailing    the 
mischances  that  happen  to  him,  seeks   to   turn   them 

'  Epist.,  I.  2,  9. 


20  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

to  good  account,  and  his  past  troubles  serve  him  as  a 
lesson  for  the  future.  So  I  think  it  was  with  Horace. 
The  years  first  following  his  return  from  Philippi  must 
have  been  for  him  very  fruitful  in  reflections  and 
resolutions  of  every  kind.  He  has  represented  himself 
at  this  epoch  upon  his  little  couch,  musing  on  the 
things  of  life,  and  asking  himself,  "How  must  I 
conduct  myself?  What  had  I  best  do?"  The  best 
thing  for  a  man  to  do  who  had  just  suffered  so  sad  a 
disillusion  was  surely  not  to  expose  himself  to  a  fresh 
one.  The  disaster  of  Philippi  had  taught  him  much. 
Henceforth  he  was  cured  of  ambition.  He  had  come 
to  know  that  honours  cost  dear,  that  in  undertaking  to 
bring  about  the  happiness  of  one's  fellow-citizens  one 
risked  one's  own,  and  that  there  is  no  lot  more  happy 
than  his  who  keeps  aloof  from  public  life.  This  is  what 
he  resolved  to  do  himself,  this  is  what  he  recommended 
without  ceasing  to  others.  Doubtless  his  great  friends 
could  not  quite  renounce  politics  or  abandon  the  Forum. 
He  counselled  them  to  take  occasional  distraction  from 
them.  To  Quintius,  to  Maecenas,  to  Torquatus,  he  said  : 
"  Give  yourselves  then  some  leisure  ;  let  your  client  dance 
attendance  in  the  ante-chamber  and  get  away  by  some 
back  door.  Forget  Cantabria  and  Dacia :  don't  always  be 
thinking  of  the  affairs  of  the  Empire."  As  for  him,  he 
promised  himself  faithfully  never  to  think  of  them. 
Far  from  complaining  that  he  no  longer  had  any  part 
in  them,  he  was  happy  that  their  cares  had  been  taken 
from  him.  Others  accused  Augustus  of  having  deprived 
the  Eomans  of  their  liberty ;  he  found  that  in  freeing 
them  from  the  worry  of  public  affairs  he  had  restored  it 
to  them.     To  belong  entirely  to  himself,  to  study  him- 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  21 

self,  to  know  himself,  to  make  for  himself,  as  it  were,  an 
inward  retreat  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd — in  short,  to  live 
for  himself ;  such  for  the  future  was  his  only  thought. 

But  one  seldom  regulates  one's  life  as  one  would.  In 
this  as  elsewhere,  chance  rules  supreme.  Events 
delight  to  play  havoc  with  the  best-concerted  resolu- 
tions. The  friendship  of  Maecenas,  of  course  a  very 
happy  thing  for  Horace,  was  not  long  in  causing  him 
much  embarrassment.  It  brought  him  into  contact  with 
great  personages  whom  he  was  obliged  to  treat  affably, 
although  he  often  found  it  difficult  to  esteem  them.  He 
was  forced  to  associate  withaDallius,  called  "the  acrobat 
of  the  civil  wars  "  {desultor  hellorum  civilium),  because 
of  his  skill  in  playing  from  one  party  to  another; 
with  Lucinius  Murfena,  who  was  levity  itself,  and 
who  finished  by  conspiring  against  Augustus;  with 
Munatius  Plaucus,  the  former  flatterer  of  Antony 
and  the  buffoon  of  Cleopatra,  said  to  be  a  traitor 
by  temperament  {morbo  proditor).  All  wanted  to 
be  thought  intimate  with  him.  They  asked  him 
to  address  to  them  one  of  those  little  pieces 
which  did  honour  to  him  who  received  them.  They 
wished  their  names  to  be  found  in  the  collection  of 
those  works  which  men  thought  predestined  to  im- 
mortality. Horace  did  not  like  it ;  it  was  doubtless 
repugnant  to  him  to  appear  the  vulgar  singer  of  the 
court  and  the  prince.  So,  even  when  obliged  to  yield,  he 
did  not  always  do  so  with  a  good  grace.  For  instance,  he 
only  writes  once  to  Agrippa,  and  it  is  ..to  tell  him  that 
he  will  not  sing  his  praises,  and  to  pass  him  on  to 
Yarius,  the  successor  of  Homer,  and  alone  worthy  to 
handle  so  fine  a  subject.  He  does  not  wish  to  busy  himself 


22  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

with  Augustus  either.  He  pretends  to  be  afraid  of  com- 
promising his  hero's  glory  by  singing  his  praises  badly, 
and  does  not  claim  to  have  genius  enough  for  so  great 
a  work.  But  Augustus  was  not  to  be  put  off  with  this 
excuse ;  he  pressed  and  prayed  the  too  modest  poet 
again  and  again.  ''  Know,"  he  wrote  to  him,  "  that  I  am 
angered  at  thy  not  yet  having  thought  to  address  one  of 
thy  epistles  to  me.  Dost  thou  fear  that  in  the  after- 
time  it  will  be"  shameful  for  thee  to  seem  to  have  been 
my  friend  ?"''  After  these  amiable  words,  Horace 
could  no  longer  resist,  and  from  compliance  to  com- 
pliance he  found  himself  led  against  his  inclination  to 
become  the  official  poet  of  the  dynasty. 

Being  seen  allied  with  so  many  important  men,  the 
familiar  of  Maecenas,  the  friend  of  the  Emperor,  he  could 
scarcely  fail  to  be  considered  as  a  sort  of  personage.  He 
did  not,  it  is  true,  fill  any  public  office ;  the  most  they  had 
left  him  was  his  knight's  ring,  won  in  the  civil  wars  ;  ^ 
but,  in  order  to  have  authority,  it  was  not  necessary  to 
wear  the  pretexta.  M{3ecenas,  who  was  nothing  to  him, 
passed  for  the  counsellor  of  Augustus :  might  not  Horace 
be  suspected  of  being  the  confidant  of  Maecenas  ?  See- 
ing him  drive  out  with  him,  and  sit  in  the  theatre  beside 
him,  everybody  said  :  "  What  a  happy  man  !  "  ^  If  the 
two  talked  it  was  imagined  they  were  debating  the  fate 
of  the  world.  In  vain  Horace  affirmed  upon  his  honour 
that  Maecenas  had  only  said  to  him :  "  What  o'clock  is 
it  ?     It  is  very  cold  this  morning  ; "  and  other  secrets 

^  Suetonius,  Vita  Horatii,  p.  46  (Reifferscheid). 
^Sat,  II.  7,  53. 

'  All  the   following   details   are   taken   from   the   sixth   Satire   of 
the  Second  Book,  and  the  ninth  of  the  last. 


Horace's  country  house.  23 

of  the  like  importance  ;  people  wouldn't  believe  it.  He 
could  no  longer  walk  as  formerly  in  the  Forum  and 
the  Field  of  Mars,  listening  to  the  quacks  and  fortune- 
tellers, and  asking  the  dealers  the  prices  of  their  wares ; 
he  was  watched,  followed,  approached  at  every  step  by 
the  unfortunate  and  the  inquisitive.  A  newsmonger 
wanted  to  know  the  situation  of  the  armies ;  a  politician 
asked  him  for  information  concerning  the  projects  of 
Augustus,  and  wlien  he  answered  that  he  did  not  know 
anything  about  these  matters,  they  congratulated  him 
on  his  statesmanlike  reserve  and  admired  his  diplomatic 
discretion.  He  met  on  the  Sacred  Way  an  intriguer,  who 
begged  him  to  introduce  him  to  Maecenas  :  they  brought 
him  petitions,  they  requested  his  support,  they  put 
themselves  under  his  protection.  Envious  people 
accused  him  of  being  an  egotist  who  wished  to  keep  for 
himself  alone  the  favour  he  enjoyed,  and  enemies  re- 
called the  st(;ry  of  his  birth,  triumphantly  repeating 
everywhere  that  he  was  only  the  son  of  a  slave.  It  is 
true  that  this  reproach  did  not  affect  him,  and  what  they 
threw  in  his  face  as  a  disgrace,  he  boasted  of  as  a  title  of 
honour ;  but  meanwhile  the  days  were  passing.  He  was 
no  longer  his  own  master,  he  could  no  longer  live  as  he 
liked,  his  dear  liberty  was  being  stolen  from  him  every 
moment.  Of  what  use  was  it  to  have  kept  aloof  from 
public  functions  if  he  had  all  its  plagues  without  en- 
joying its  advantages  ?  These  worries  maddened  him, 
Eome  became  unbearable,  and  he  doubless  sought  in  his 
mind  some  means  of  escaping  from  the  bores  wlio  beset 
him,  and  of  regaining  the  peace  and  liberty  he  had  lost. 
It  was  then  that  Maecenas  gave  him  the  estate  in 
the  Sabina — that  is  to  say,  a  safe  asylum  to  shelter  him 


24  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

from  the  troublesome,  where  he  was  to  live  for  himself 
alone.  Never  was  liberality  more  seasonably  bestowed 
or  welcomed  with  such  joy.  The  timeliness  of  the 
benefit  explains  the  warmth  of  his  gratitude. 


III. 


JOURNEY  TO  THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  SABINA — THE  TEMPLE  OF 
VACUNA — ROCCAGIOVINE — FONTE  DELV  ORATINl— 
PROBABLE  POSITION  OF  THE  HOUSE — EXTENT  OF 
HORACE'S  DOMAIN — PLEASANTNESS  OF  THE  SITE. 

We  now  know  how  Horace  became  possessed  of  his 
country  house ;  it  remains  for  us  to  become  acquainted 
with  its  neighbourhood,  and  to  ascertain  whether  it 
deserves  what  the  poet  has  said  about  it,  and  why  it 
pleased  him. 

It  was,  as  we  have  seen,  near  Tivoli.  The  road 
thither  is  the  ancient  Via  Valeria,  one  of  the  most 
important  Eoman  routes  to  Italy,  leading  into  the 
territory  of  the  Marsians.  It  follows  the  Anio  and 
traverses  a  fertile  country  surrounded  by  high 
mountains,  on  whose  summits  stand  some  villages,  true 
eagles'  nests,  that  from  afar  seem  unapproachable. 
Now  and  again  one  meets  with  ancient  monuments, 
and  one  treads  beneath  one's  feet  fragments  of  that 
Eoman  pavement,  o'er  which  so  many  nations  have 
passed  without  being  able  to  destroy  it.  In  three  or 
four  hours  we  reach  Vicovaro,  which,  as  I  have  already 
said,  was  formerly  Varia,  the  important  town  of  the 
neighbourhood.     There  we  must  leave  the  main  road, 


VALLEY    OF    THE    LICENZA 

Horaces  Country  House. 


Scale 


2Kil. 


Horace's  country  house.  25 

and  take  to  the  left  one  which  follows  the  banks  of  the 
Licenza.^  On  the  other  side  of  the  torrent,  a  little 
higher  than  Vicovaro,  we  see  Bardela,  a  large  village, 
with  a  castle  that  from  a  distance  looks  very  well.  It 
was  a  village  where  Horace  tells  us  one  shivered  with 
cold :  rugosus  frigore  pagusp-  Abbe  Capmartin  de 
Chaupy  remarked  that  the  place  really  is  sometimes 
invaded  by  cold  fogs  descending  from  the  adjacent 
mountains.  He  tells  us  that  one  day  when  drawing, 
"  he  felt  himself  seized  from  behind  by  a  cold  as  piercing 
as  it  was  sudden,"  but  as  he  is  accused  of  partiality 
to  Horace,  and  wants  all  the  assertions  of  his  dear  poet 
to  be  verified  to  the  letter,  he  may  be  suspected  of 
having  put  just  a  little  goodwill  into  his  shiver !  I 
went  that  way  in  the  month  of  April,  about  noon,  and 
found  it  very  hot.  After  passing  Bardela,  at  a  turn  of 
the  road,  Eoccagiovine  is  seen  to  the  left.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  picturesque  villages  in  the  neighbourhood, 
being  perched  upon  a  pointed  rock  that  seems  to  have 
become  detached  from  the  mass  of  the  mountain.  The 
way  up  to  it  is  rough,  and  while  fatiguing  myself  in  the 
ascent,  the  expression  used  by  Horace  came  home  to 
me  ;  he  tells  us  that  to  get  home  again  he  has  to  "  scale 
his  citadel."  ^ 

There  occurs  a  landmark  which  will  serve  to  direct 
us.  In  a  charming  epistle  addressed  by  Horace  to  one 
of  his  best  friends  to  tell  him  how  much  he  loves  the 
country,  and  that  of  all  the  good  things  of  Eome  he  only 

^  The  map  of  the  Licenza  valley  here  given  was  designed  from  a  very 
detailed  and  exact  topographical  plan  kindly  furnished  me  by  M. 
Tito  Berti. 

-Ejpist,  I.  18,  105.  ^Sat.,  II.  6,  15. 


26  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

regrets  to  have  no  longer  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him,  he 
ends  his  letter  by  saying  that  he  has  written  it  behind 
the  ruined  temple  of  Vacuna:  Hojg  tihi  dictabam 
fanum  post  putre  Vamnce} 

Vacuna  was  a  goddess  much  honoured  among  the 
Sabines,  and  Yarro  tells  us  that  she  was  the  same  as  the 
one  called  "  Victory "  in  Eome.  Near  the  village  a 
fine  inscription  has  been  found,  from  which  we  learn  that 
Vespasian  has  rebuilt  at  his  own  expense  the  Temple 
of  Victory,  which  was  almost  destroyed  by  age  :  j^dem 
Vidoricv  vetttstate  dilcvpsam  sua  i7npensa  restituit.  The 
coincidence  has  led  it  to  be  thought  that  the  edifice  re- 
built by  Vespasian  was  the  same  that  was  falling  into  ruin 
in  the  time  of  Horace.  In  restoring  the  temple  the 
Emperor  gave  the  goddess  her  Eoman  name,  in  lieu  of 
the  other,  wliich  v/as  no  longer  understood.  To-day  the 
inscription  is  set  in  the  walls  of  the  old  castle,  and  the 
square  liard  by  has  been  named  by  the  inhabitants 
Piazza  Vacuna.  Horace,  then,  is  not  quite  forgotten 
in  the  place  he  lived  in  eighteen  centuries  ago. 

If  you  want  to  know  to  the  life  what  Sabine  villages 
are  like,  you  must  climb  up  to  Eoccagiovine.  Nothing 
is  more  picturesque  so  long  as  one  is  content  to  look  at 
them  from  a  distance.  Catching  sight  of  them  from 
the  valley,  crowning  some  high  mountain  and  pressing 
round  the  church  or  the  castle,  one  is  delighted  with 
them.  But  all  changes  as  soon  as  one  gets  inside. 
The  houses  now  are  only  tumbledown  hovels,  the 
streets  infected  alleys  paved  with  dung.  One  cannot 
take  a  step  without  meeting  pigs  walking  about.     In  all 

'  EpisL,  I.  10,  49. 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  27 

the  Sabina  the  pigs  are  the  masters  of  the  land.  They 
are  aware  of  their  importance  and  do  not  disturb  them- 
selves for  anybody.  The  streets  belong  to  them,  and 
sometimes  the  houses.  It  must  have  been  just  the  same 
in  the  time  of  the  Eomans.  Then  also  they  formed  the 
chief  wealth  of  the  country,  and  Varro  never  speaks  of 
them  but  witli  the  greatest  respect.  I  saw  one  there  in 
the  piazza,  wallowing  with  an  air  of  delight  in  a  black 
stagnant  pool,  and  immediately  called  to  mind  this 
charming  passage  of  the  great  farmer :  "  They  roll  in 
the  filth,  which  for  them  is  a  way  of  refreshing  them- 
selves, as  for  men  to  take  a  bath."  But  one  finds 
antiquity  again  everywhere.  The  women  we  meet  are 
nearly  all  beautiful,  but  with  a  vigorous  masculine 
beauty.  We  recognise  those  sturdy  Sabine  women  of 
old,  burnt  by|  the  sun,  accustomed  to  the  heaviest 
tasks.i  At  the  end  of  the  valley  I  see  a  railway  in 
course  of  construction;  women  are  mingled  with  the 
workmen,  and,  like  them,  carry  stones  upon  their  heads* 
There  are  scarcely  any  men  in  the  village  at  the  hour 
we  pass  through  it,  but  we  are  surrounded  by  a  crowd 
of  robust  children  with  eyes  full  of  fire  and  intelligence. 
They  are  curious  and  troublesome — their  usual  fault,  but 
at  least  they  do  not  hold  out  their  hands,  as  at  Tivoli, 
where  there  are  so  many  beggars.  In  this  out-of-the- 
way  spot,  the  blood  has  been  kept  pure.  These  are  the 
remains  of  a  strong  proud  race  that  bore  a  good  part  in 
the  fortunes  of  Eome. 

If,  as  we  may  believe,  Eoccagiovine  is  built  on  the 
site  of  the  Fanum    Vacunce,  here  Horace's  estate  must 

^Carm.,  III.  6,  37. 


28  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

have  begun.  So,  bearing  to  the  right,  we  continue  the 
ascent  by  a  stony  road  shaded  here  and  there  by  walnut 
trees  and  oaks.  Before  us,  on  the  mountain  sides, 
cultivated  fields  are  spread  out,  with  a  few  rustic  dwell- 
ings. Nothing  appears  on  the  horizon  like  the  ruins  of 
an  ancient  house,  and  at  first  we  are  in  doubt  as  to 
whither  we  ought  to  wend  our  steps.  But  we  remember 
that  Horace  tells  us  there  was  close  to  his  house  a  spring 
which  never  dried  up,  an  uncommon  quality  in  southern 
countries,  and  which  was  important  enough  to  give  its 
name  to  the  rivulet  into  which  it  fell.  If  the  house  has 
disappeared,  the  spring,  at  least,  must  still  be  there;  and 
when  we  have  found  it,  it  will  be  easy  to  fix  the  place 
of  the  rest.  We  follow  a  little  path  skirting  an  old 
church  in  ruins — the  Madonna  ddla  Casa — and  a  little 
lower  we  come  upon  the  spring  we  are  seeking.  The 
country  people  call  it  Fonte  dell  'Oratini  or  Fonte  de* 
Ratini;  is  it  by  chance  that  it  has  kept  a  name  so  near 
akin  to  that  of  the  poet  ?  ^  In  any  case  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult not  to  believe  it  to  be  the  one  of  which  he  has 
spoken  to  us.  There  is  not  a  more  important  one  in  the 
vicinity ;  it  gushes  abundantly  from  the  hollow  rock, 
and  an  old  fig-tree  covers  it  with  its  shade.  I  know 
not  whether,  as  Horace  asserts,^  "its  waters  are  good 

^  Fons  etiam  rivo  dare  nomen  idoneus, — Epist.,  1.  16,  12.  M.  Pietro 
Rosa  bids  us  remark  that  to-day  the  Licenza  still  only  takes  its 
name  from  the  moment  it  receives  the  waters  of  the  little  fountain. 
Till  then  it  is  only  called  il  Rivo  (the  brook).  See  the  notice  which 
Noel  des  Vergers  has  put  at  the  beginning  of  Didot's  Horace. 

2  This  is  quite  how  Horace  has  described  the  fount  of  Bandusia 
{Carm.,  III.  13,  1).  He  speaks  of  this  "  oak  placed  above  the  hol- 
low rock  from  which  gushed  the  prattling  wave."  It  is  known  to-day 
that  Bandusia  was  situated  in  Aquilia,  near  Venusia.      But  it  is  quite 


Horace's  country  house.  29 

for  the  stomach  and  relieve  the  head,"^  but  they  are 
fresh  and  limpid.  The  spot  round  about  them  is  charm- 
ing, quite  fitted  for  reverie,  and  I  can  understand  how 
the  poet  counted  among  the  happiest  moments  of  his 
day,  those  when  he  came  to  take  a  little  rest  here: 
IJTO'pe  rivum  somnus  in  herhaP- 

The  position  of  the  spring  found  again,  that  of  the 
house  may  be  guessed.  Since  Horace  tells  us  they  were 
near  each  other,^  we  need  only  seek  in  the  vicinity. 
Capmartin  de  Chaupy  placed  the  house  much  lower, 
near  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  in  a  place  where  some 
remains  of  ancient  walls  and  pavement  still  were 
to  be  found.  But  these  remains  seem  to  be  of  later 
date  than  the  time  of  Augustus.  Besides,  we  know 
from  Horace  himself  that  he  lived  on  a  steep 
plateau,  and  he  speaks  of  his  house  as  of  a  sort  of 
fortress.  I  believe  then  that  M.  Pietro  Eosa  was  right 
in  placing  it  a  little  higher.  He  supposed  it  must  be  a 
little  above  the  Madonna  della  Oasa.  Just  there  an 
artificial  terrace  is  remarked,  apparently  arranged  in 
order  to  serve  as  the  placement  of  a  house.  The  soil 
has  long  since  been  under  cultivation  ;  but  the  plough 
often  turns  up  bits  of  brick  and  broken  tiles  that  seem 
to  have  formed  part  of  an  ancient  building.  Is  it  here 
that   the   house   of   Horace   really   stood  ?      M.    Eosa 

possible  that  Horace  may  have  given  to  the  little  spring  that  flowed 
near  his  house  the  name  of  the  one  where  he  had  so  often  slaked  his 
thirst  in  his  youth,  ere  he  quitted  his  birthplace.  The  resemblance 
between  the  landscape  described  in  the  Ode  of  Horace  and  the  real  site 
of  the  fountain  dell*  OrafAni  renders  this  hypothesis  very  probable. 

^  JSpisL,  I.  16,  14  :  Infirmo  cajntijluit  utilis,  tUili  alvo. 

'  lbid.,l.U,Z6. 


30  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HOKACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

believes  so.  It  is  certain,  in  any  case,  that  it  could  not 
have  been  far  distant.^ 
^  From  this  elevated  spot  let  us  cast  our  eyes  over  the 
surrounding  country.  Below  us  we  have  a  long,  narrow 
valley,  at  whose  bottom  flows  the  torrent  of  the  Licenza,. 
It  is  dominated  by  mountains  which  seem  to  meet  on 
every  side.  To  the  left  the  Licenza  turns  so  sharply 
that  one  cannot  perceive  the  gorge  into  which  it  plunges  ; 
to  the  right  the  cliff  on  which  Roccagiovine  sits  perched 
seems  to  have  rolled  into  the  valley  to  close  its  ingress, 
so  that  no  issue  is  seen  on  any  side.  I  recognise  the 
landscape  as  it  is  described  by  Horace  : — 

"  Continu'i  monies,  nisi  dissocientur  opaca. 
Valler- 

Having  glanced  over  this  fine  assemblage  of  moun- 
tains, I  return  to  what  must  interest  us  above  all. 
I  ask  myself,  in  the  extent  of  grounds  which  my  eyes 
take  in,  what  could  have  belonged  to  the  poet  ?  He 
has  never  expressed  himself  clearly  as  to  the  true  limits 
of  his  domain.  Occasionally  he  seems  desirous  to 
diminish  its  importance — his  house  is  only  a  cottage 
(vilhila),^  surrounded  by  a  tiny  little  field  {agclhis),^  of 

■^  I  must  say,  however,  that  the  opinion  of  Capmartin  de  Chaupy 
and  of  De  Sanctis  is  that  which  prevails  in  the  neighbourhood.  It  has 
lately  been  taken  up  again  and  strongly  maintained  by  M.  Tito  Berti 
(see  the  Fanfidla  della  domenica,  1st  November  1885).  In  spite  of  the 
reasons  given  by  M.  Berti,  however,  the  site  pointed  out  by  De  Chaupy 
appears  to  me  somewhat  too  near  the  Licenza  and  rather  too  low. 
But  there  certainly  was  the  house  of  a  rich  Roman  in  this  spot.  M. 
Berti  has  found  interesting  mosaic  pavements  there,  and  perhaps  it 
would  be  useful  to  push  the  excavations  a  little  further.  Care  has 
been  taken  to  mark  on  the  site  where  Chaupy  and  M.  Rosa  respec- 
tively place  the  house  of  Horace. 

2  EpisL,  I.  16,  5.         3  ;SaL,  II.  3,  10.         *  EpisL,  I.  14,  1. 


ttORACE*S   COUNTRY    HOUSE.  31 

which  even  his  farmer  speaks  with  contempt.  But 
Horace  is  a  prudent  man  who  willingly  depreciates  him- 
self in  order  to  escape  envy.  I  think  that  in  reality 
his  estate  in  the  Sabina  must  have  been  pretty  extensive. 
"  Thou  hast  made  me  rich,"  ^  he  one  day  told  Maecenas 
— doubtless  not  rich  like  those  great  lords  and  knights 
who  possessed  innnense  fortunes,  but  surely  much  more 
so  than  he  had  ever  wished  to  become  or  dreamt  of  becom- 
ing. However  moderate  by  nature,  few  deny  themselves 
an  occasional  excess  in  their  dreams.  Horace  tells  us 
that  these  ideal  excesses,  these  dreams  which  he  formed 
in  his  youth  without  hoping  ever  to  see  them  accom- 
plished, were  far  surpassed  by  the  reality : 
"  Auctius  atq^ie 
Di  mdiui^  facere"' 

We  possess  information  which  will  give  us  a  very 
correct  idea  of  Horace's  estate.  He  did  not  keep  all 
the  ground  on  his  own  account.  The  trouble  of  farm- 
ing on  a  large  scale  would  not  have  suited  him  at  all. 
So  he  let  out  a  part  to  five  freemen,  who  had  each  his 
house,  and  who  went  on  the  mcndincv  or  market  days 
to  Varia,  either  on  their  own  business  or  that  of  the 
little  community.^  Five  farmers  presuppose  a  pretty 
large  estate,  and  it  must  be  added  that  what  he  kept 
for  himself  was  not  without  some  importance,  since 
eight  slaves  were  required  to  cultivate  it.*  It  seems  to 
me  then  that  a  great  part  of  the  grounds  around  me, 
from  the  top  of  the  mountain  to  the  Licenza,  must  have 
been  his.  This  extensive  space  contained,  so  to  speak, 
different  zones,  which  admitted   of   varied   species  of 

^  Tu  me  fecuti  ocupUtem.  —Ejiist.,  I.  7,  15, 

2  Sat.,  II.  6,  3.         '^Ejnst.,  I.  14,  2.         ^  Sat.,  II.  7,  118. 


32  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

husbandry,  afforded  the  owner  various  temperatures, 
and  consequently  offered  him  distractions  and  pleasures 
of  more  than  one  kind.  In  the  middle,  half-way  up 
the  hill,  was  the  house  with  its  dependencies.  All  we 
know  of  the  house  is  that  it  was  simple,  neither  gilded 
wainscoting,  ivory  ornaments,  nor  marbles  of  Hymettus 
and  Africa  being  seen  in  it.^  This  luxury  was  not 
suitable  for  the  depths  of  the  Sabina.  Near  the  house 
there  was  a  garden  which  must  have  contained  fine 
regular  quincunxes  and  straight  alleys  shut  in  by 
hedges  of  hornbeam,  as  was  then  the  fashion.  Horace 
somewhere  speaks  against  the  mania  affected  by  people 
of  his  time  for  changing  the  elm,  which  unites  with  the 
vine,  for  the  plane-tree — the  bachelor  tree,  as  he  calls  it ; 
and  he  attacks  those  who  are  lavish  in  violet  beds  and 
myrtle  fields,  "  vain  olfactory  riches,"  ^  as  he  calls  them. 
Did  he  remain  faithful  to  his  principles  and  allow 
himself  no  pleasure  ?  and  was  his  garden  quite  like 
Cato's,  where  only  useful  trees  and  plants  were  found  ? 
I  should  not  like  to  say  so  too  positively.  More  than 
once  it  has  happened  to  him  not  to  apply  to  himself 
the  precepts  he  gives  to  others,  and  to  be  more  rigorous 
in  his  verse  than  in  his  life.  Below  the  house  and  the 
garden  the  ground  was  fertile.  It  is  here  those  crops 
grew,  which,  as  Horace  says,  never  deceived  his 
expectations.^  Here,  too,  perhaps,  he  culled  that  wine 
which  he  served  at  his  table  in  coarse  amphorae, 
and  which  he  does  not  praise  to  Maecenas.*     Y'et   a 

'  Carm.,  II.  18,  1.  ^  Ibid.,  II.  15,  6. 

^Ibid.,  III.  3,  16,  30:  Segetis  certa fides  mece. 

^  There  is  some  uncertainty  as  to  whether  Horace's  estate  produced 
wine.     The  poet  seems  to  contradict  himself  on  this  point.     In  the 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY   HOUSE.  33 

little  further  down,  towards  the  banks  of  the  Licenza, 
the  soil  became  damper,  and  meads  took  the  place  of 
cultivated  fields.  Then  as  now  the  torrent,  swollen  by 
storm  rains,  sometimes  left  its  bed,  and  spread  over  the 
surrounding  ground,  causing  Horace's  farmer  to  grumble, 
since  he  dolefully  foresaw  that  he  would  have  to  make 
a  dyke  to  protect  the  land  from  the  flood.^  But  if  the 
country  was  smiling  towards  the  bottom  of  the  valley, 
above  the  house  it  became  more  and  more  wild. 
Here  were  brambles  "  rich  in  sloes  and  red  cornel,"  ^ 
with  oaks  and  holms  covering  the  slopes  of  the  moun- 
tain. In  his  youthful  dreams  of  which  I  spoke  just 
now,  the  poet  asked  nothing  of  the  gods  but  a  clump 
of  trees  to  crown  his  little  field.^  Maecenas  had  done 
things  better;  Horace's  wood  covered  several  jugera. 
There  was  enough  of  it  "  to  feed  the  flock  with  acorns, 
and  furnish  the  master  a  thick  shade." 

Horace,  then,  had  not  received  from  his  patron 
merely  a  little  scribbler's  corner  of  a  garden,  "  a  lizard's 
hole,"  as  Juvenal  says ;  it  was  a  real  estate,  with  pasture 
lands,  fields,  woods,  and  a  complete  rustic  equipment, 
at  the  same  time  a  pleasure  and  a  fortune.  How  had 
this  estate  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Maecenas  ?  It  is 
not  known.    Some  scandal-mongers  have  suggested  that 

epistle  to  his  villicus,  he  says,  "This  corner  of  ground  would  rather 
grow  incense  and  pepper  than  a  bunch  of  grapes."  Elsewhere  he 
invites  Maecenas  to  dinner,  and  tells  him  he  can  only  give  him  a 
middling  Sabine  wine  of  his  own  bottling,  which  seems  to  show  that 
he  gathered  it  himself  (Car?M.,  I.  20).  But  vines  certainly  grow  in  the 
Licenza  valley,  and  at  Roccagiovine  one  drinks  a  wine  now  that 
is  not  bad. 

^  JEpw^.,  I.  14,  29.  'Uhid.,l.lQ,Q. 

^  Et  paulum  silvce  super  his  ford. — Sat.^  II.  6,  3. 

C 


34  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AXD   VIRGIL. 

it  might  very  well  have  been  confiscated  from  political 
enemies,  and  that  probably  Miecenas  gave  his  friend 
lands  not  his  own.  These  inexpensive  liberalities  were 
not  uncommon  at  that  time.  It  is  said  that  Augustus 
one  day  offered  Virgil  the  fortune  of  an  exile,  and  that 
the  poet  refused  it.^  I  hope  that  Horace  was  not  less 
delicate  than  his  friend.  But  these  are  mere  hypotheses, 
which  must  not  stop  us.  All  we  know  about  Horace's 
estate  is  that  it  was  in  a  very  bad  condition  when  given 
to  him.  The  ground  was  covered  with  thorns  and 
brambles,  and  it  was  long  since  the  plough  had  passed 
over  it."^  When  he  took  possession,  he  was  so  unwise 
as  to  bring  to  direct  the  works  one  of  those  town  slaves, 
who,  according  to  Columella,  are  only  a  lazy,  sleepy 
race  {socors  et  somniculosum  genus).^  All  the  wretch 
knew  about  the  country  was  doubtless  from  the  well- 
kept  gardens  round  about  Eome.  When  he  got  to  the 
Sabina,  and  saw  those  untilled  fields  that  had  been 
given  him  to  cultivate,  he  thought  that  he  had  fallen 
into  a  wilderness,  and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  go  away 
again  at  once.  Horace  himself,  in  spite  of  his  love  for 
his  property,  has  not  exaggerated  its  merits.  The  soil,  he 
tells  us,  is  far  from  being  so  fertile  as  that  of  Calabria, 
and  above  all,  the  vines  here  are  much  inferior  to  those 
of  Campania.^  What  he  praises  without  reserve  is  the 
temperature,^  equal  in  all  seasons;  being  neither  too 
cold  in  winter  nor  too  hot  in  summer.  He  is  inex- 
haustible in  his  praises  on  this  point,  and  one  under- 
stands that  he  should  be  keenly  alive  to  it.     Is  there  a 

1  Donat,  Vita  Virg.,  5.        "  EjnsL,  I.  14,  27.        ^Colum.,  I.  8,  1. 
^Carjn.,  III.  16,  33.  ^EjnsL,  I.  16,  S  ;  see  also  I.  10,  15. 


hoeace's  country  house.  85 

greater  pleasure,  on  leaving  the  Roman  furnace  behind 
one,  than  to  take  refuge  in  a  charming  retreat  where 
the  shade  of  the  great  trees  and  the  fresh  wind  of  the 
mountains  allows  one  at  least  to  breathe  ? 

I  remark  also  that  he  has  never  exaggerated  the 
beauty  of  the  scenery  round  about  his  country  house. 
An  owner's  partiality  does  not  mislead  him  to  compare 
it  to  the  famous  sites  of  Italy — to  Baia,  to  Tibur,  to 
Prteneste.  Baia,  he  tells  us,  is  one  of  the  wonders  of 
the  world  ;  nothing  so  beautiful  is  elsewhere  seen  : 
^^  Nullus  in  orhe  sinus  Baiis  j^Toelucit  amcenis."  ^ 

PrEeneste  also  is  an  admirable  spot,  whence  one 
enjoys  one  of  the  most  varied  and  extensive  views 
imaginable.  Horace  enjoyed  being  there  very  much, 
and  returned  again  and  again.  It  must  be  owned  that 
the  Licenza  valley  has  nothing  like  it,  and  it  would  not 
surprise  me  if  a  traveller  coming  from  Palestrina  or 
Tivoli  were  to  feel  disappointed.  That  would  be  his 
fault  and  not  Horace's,  who  has  not  tried  to  deceive  us. 
If  at  first  our  expectation  is  not  quite  satisfied,  we 
should  only  blame  ourselves.  He  has  nowhere  asserted 
that  this  little  solitary  valley  is  the  most  beautiful 
spot  in  the  world,  as  he  has  of  Baia ;  he  simply  tells  us 
he  was  happy  here.  Can  one  not  be  happy  without 
always  having  an  immense  horizon  before  one,  and 
living  in  a  perpetual  ecstasy  ?  One  must  exaggerate 
nothing,  in  any  direction.  If  the  Sabine  valley  is  not 
comparable  to  the  beautiful  sites  I  have  just  spoken  of, 
it  is  still,  in  its  small  proportions,  very  pleasant.  Let 
me  add  that  many  things  must   have  changed  since 

^^pisL,  I.  1,  83. 


36  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

ancient  times.  Now  the  mountains  are  bare ;  they  were 
formerly  covered  with  trees.  To  realise  what  they 
must  have  been  like,  I  deck  them  in  thought  with  that 
admirable  little  wood  of  green  oaks  you  pass  through 
on  your  way  to  the  sacro  speco  of  Subiaco.  The  valley 
is  no  longer  like  what  it  used  to  be ;  it  has  lost  the 
shades  which  Horace  loved  so  well,  and  which  reminded 
him  of  Tarentum  : 

"  Credas  adduction  propiusfrondere  Tarentum."  ^ 

But  what  has  not  changed,  what  used  to  be  and 
still  is  the  characteristic  of  this  charming  valley,  is  its 
calm,  its  tranquillity,  its  silence.  At  noon,  from  the 
Madonna  delta  Casa  one  hears  only  the  subdued  sound 
of  the  torrent  rising  from  the  bottom  of  the  valley. 
Here  is  just  what  Horace  came  in  search  of.  Extra- 
ordinary sights  cast  the  mind  into  a  kind  of  ravishment 
that  excites  and  troubles  it.  It  is  a  fatigue  which  in 
the  long  run  he  would  have  ill  borne.  He  did  not 
wish  Nature  to  draw  him  too  much  to  her,  and  prevent 
him  from  belonging  to  himself.  So  nothing  suited  him 
better  than  this  tranquil  landscape  where  all  is  repose 
and  meditation.  Athough  he  was  here  near  Eome,  and 
as  a  rule  his  docked  mule  could  take  him  thither  in  a 
day,  he  might  think  himself  a  thousand  leagues  off.^ 

1  EpisL,  I.   16,   11. 

2  Horace  tells  us,  in  the  Satire  descriptive  of  his  journey  to  Brindisi, 
that  active  people  pressed  for  time  could  cover  43  Roman  miles  (about 
38  English  miles)  in  a  day.  He,  who  liked  his  ease,  took  two  days  for 
the  journey.  The  second  day  he  went  27  miles.  The  distance  from 
Rome  to  the  villa  in  the  Sabina  must  have  been  from  31  to  32  miles 
(about  28  English  miles).  The  journey  then  could  be  done  in  a  day.  It 
is  probable,  however,  that  Horace,  not  wishing  to  tire  himself,  often 
slept  at  Tibur.     It  has  been  thought  that  in  order  to  avoid  going  to 


hoeace's  country  house.  37 

This  is  what  he  did  not  find  elsewhere.  At  Prseneste, 
when  he  went  to  sit  and  read  Homer  on  the  steps  of 
the  temple  of  Fortune,  he  perceived  the  walls  of  the 
great  town  in  the  haze.  At  Baia  he  met  young  folk 
intent  on  their  noisy  jollities.  It  was  Eome  again, 
seen  from  a  distance  or  elbowed  in  the  streets.  Eome 
did  not  come  into  the  valley  of  the  Sabina,  for  who 
among  these  young  elegants  would  have  dared  to 
venture  into  the  mountains  beyond  Tibur  ?  Horace, 
then,  was  really  at  home  there.  He  could  say,  when  he 
put  his  foot  into  his  domain,  "  Here  I  no  longer 
belong  to  the  importunate ;  I  have  left  the  cares  and 
worries  of  the  town ;  at  length  I  live  and  am  my  own 
master,  vivo  et  regno." 

IV. 

RENOWN  OF  HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE  AMONG  THE  POETS 
OF  ROME — SITUATION  OF  POETS  IN  ROME — RELATIONS 
OF  HORACE  AND  M^CENAS  TO  EACH  OTHER — HOW 
THE  POET  MADE  THE  GREAT  LORD  RESPECT  HIM. 

The  villa  in  the  Sabine  hills,  which  holds  so  great  a 

the  inn,  he  bought  or  hired  a  little  house  there,  as  was  the  custom 
of  rich  Romans,  Suetonius  even  assures  us  that  in  his  time  they  used 
to  show  at  Tibur  a  house  said  to  have  belonged  to  him.  In  reality 
this  assertion  is  not  based  on  any  precise  text  of  the  poet.  When 
he  tells  us  that  he  returns  to  Tibur,  or  that  he  likes  to  live  there, 
tlie  name  of  the  town  is  probably  taken  for  that  of  its  territory. 
M.  Camille  Jullian  has  shown,  in  the  Melanges  d'archeologie  et 
(Vhistoire,  published  by  the  Ecole  Francaise  of  Rome,  that  Tibur, 
although  of  Latin  origin,  was  the  chief  town  of  a  Sabine  district, 
and  that  the  territory  of  Varia  was  dependent  on  it.  It  may  then 
be  understood  that  when  Horace  speaks  of  Tibur  he  means  his  house 
in  the  Sabina. 


38  TITE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

place  in  Horace's  life,  occupies  no  less  a  one  in  the 
history  of  literature.  From  the  day  when  Maecenas 
presented  it  to  his  friend,  this  quiet  house  with  its 
garden,  its  spring  hard  by,  and  its  little  wood,  has 
become  an  ideal  towards  which  poets  of  all  times  have 
had  their  eyes  directed.  Those  of  Eome  tried  to  attain  it 
in  the  same  way  that  Horace  had  done.^  They  applied  to 
the  generosity  of  rich  people,  and  tried  by  their  verses  to 
arouse  their  self-love.  I  do  not  know  any  among  them 
to  whom  this  business  seemed  repugnant,  and  Juvenal 
himself,  who  passes  for  a  fiery  republican,  has  pro- 
claimed that  there  is  no  future  for  poetry  other  than  the 
protection  of  the  prince.^  This  is  also  the  opinion  of 
his  friend  Martial,  who  has  made  a  kind  of  general 
theory  of  it,  which  he  sets  forth  with  singular  naivete. 
There  is,  according  to  him,  a  sure  recipe  for  the  produc- 
tion of  great  poets ;  you  have  only  to  pay  them  well. 

"  Sint  McBcenates  non  deerent  Flacce,  MaronesJ'  ' 

Had  Virgil  remained  poor,  he  would  have  done 
nothing  better  than  the  Bucolics.  Happily,  he  had  a 
liberal  protector,  who  said  to  him :  "  Here  is  fortune, 
here  is  the  wherewithal  to  give  you  all  the  pleasures  of 
life ;  tackle  the  Epic."  And  he  at  once  composed  the 
^neid.  The  method  is  infallible,  and  the  result  assured. 
The  poor  poet  would  have  very  much  liked  the  experi- 
ment to  be  made  on  him ;  and  he  would  have  asked 
nothing  better  than  to  become,  for  a  fair  consideration, 
a  man  of  genius.     So  he  wore  out  his  life  in  offering 

^Epist.,  I.  10,  8. 

2  Juv.,  Sat.,  VII.  1  :  Et  spes  et  ratio  studiorum  in  Ccesare  tanficm. 

3  Martial,  VIII.  56. 


hokace's  countey  nousE.  39 

himself  to  every  protector  in  turn  ;  ^  none  would  agree 
to  make  the  experiment;  the  time  of  the  Msecenates 
was  past. 

This  baseness  arouses  the  indignation  of  not  a 
few  persons,  who  feel  called  upon  to  expatiate  on  the 
subject.  They  begin  by  attacking  Martial,  and  end 
by  striking  Horace.  They  have  been  answered  more 
than  once  that  what  they  call  meanness  was  merely  a 
necessity,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  literature  in  those 
days  did  not  give  its  followers  enough  to  live  on.^ 
Until  the  invention  of  printing  no  clear  idea  of  the 
rights  of  authorship  could  have  existed.  Once  pub- 
lished, a  book  belonged  to  everybody.  Nothing  pre- 
vented those  who  got  hold  of  it  from  having  it  copied 
as  many  times  as  they  chose,  and  selling  the  copies 
they  did  not  want.  It  was  all  very  well  for  the  book- 
seller to  buy  of  the  author  the  right  to  bring  his  book 
before  the  world ;  but  as  nothing  assured  him  the 
durable  property  of  the  work,  and  as,  when  it  had  once 
appeared,  all  who  possessed  copyist  slaves  in  their 
houses  could  reproduce  and  spread  it,  he  paid  very 
little  for  it,  and  what  he  gave  did  not  suffice  the  o.uthor 
for  his  livelihood.^     If,  then,  the  author  did  not  wish  to 


^  Martial,  I.  107,  3  :  Otici  da  nohis,  scd  qitalia  facerat  olim 
Mcccenas  fiacco  Virgilioqiie  suo. 

2  See  above  all  what  Friedlfiender  says  on  this  subject  in  his  Eistoire 
des  maiurs  Romaines.  Curious  particulars  will  be  found  in  the  fourth 
volume  of  the  French  translation. 

'  Martial  regrets  not  being  able  to  derive  from  his  books  sufficient  pro- 
fit to  buy  a  little  corner  where  he  can  sleep  in  peace  (X.  84).  He  tells 
us  elsewhere  that  his  verses  are  sold  and  read  in  Britain.  "  But  what 
boots  it?  "  he  adds;  *  'my  purse  knows  nothing  about  it"  (XI.  3,  5), 
which  proves  that  the  booksellers  of  that  country  did  not  pay  him. 


40  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

die  of  hunger,  he  had  no  resource  but  to  apply  to  some 
important  personage  and  solicit  his  liberality. 

It  has  also  been  remarked  that  what  appears  to  us 
base   and   humiliating   in  this   necessity   was   greatly 
diminished   and   almost  cloaked  by  the  institution  of 
clientship.     This  was  an  ancient,  honourable,  national 
institution,  protected   by  religion  and  the  laws.     The 
client  was  not  dishonoured   by  the  services  which  he 
rendered   to   his   patron  and   the   payment  which   he 
received  from  him;   no  one  thought  it  strange  that  a 
great  lord  should  pay  with   his  money,  aid  with  his 
influence,  and  feed  in  his  house  a  crowd  of  people  who 
came  to  greet  him  in  the  morning,  formed  his  train 
when  he  walked  abroad,  supported  his  candidatures, 
applauded    him    in     the    tribune,    and    abused     his 
opponents.     Nor   did   anyone  find   fault  with   his  in- 
cluding among  these  clients  poets  who  sang  his  exploits, 
historians  who  celebrated  his  ancestors,  and  philologists 
who  dedicated  their  works  to  him.    This  kind  of  depend- 
ence did  not  appear  at  all  humiliating,  and  the  clients 
profited  by  the  popularity  enjoyed  by  their  principal.    I 
may  add  that  the  writers  who  entered  the  house  of  a  great 
lord  in  this  way  were  usually  a  very  humble  kind  of 
people,  who  had  no  right  to  be  squeamish.     Some,  like 
Martial,  had  left  a  distant  province  where  they  had  lived 
wretchedly  in  order  to  come  and  seek  their  fortune ;  the 
others  were  generally  former  slaves.     At  Eome  slavery 
recruited  literature  and  the  arts.  Among  the  masters  of 
slaves  it  was  a  speculation  to  give  some  of  them  a  good 
education   in   order   to   sell   them   dear.     These   often 
became  distinguished  men,  who  were  made  tutors  and 
secretaries,  and  who  were  sometimes  also  writers  and 


Horace's  country  house.  41 

poets  of  merit.  AYhen  tliey  had  won  their  liberty, 
which  did  not  always  endow  them  with  means,  they 
had  nothincc  better  to  do  than  to  attach  themselves  to 
an  old  master,  or  to  some  generous  patron  who  offered 
them  protection.  For  people  of  such  an  origin  client- 
ship  was  not  a  decline.  From  servitude  it  was,  on  the 
contrary,  a  progress.  This  is  how  men  of  letters  were 
so  long  the  clients  of  the  rich,  without  anybody  appear- 
ing shocked  or  even  surprised.  Afterwards,  when 
public  instruction  was  organised  in  Eome  and  in  the 
provinces,  they  became  professors.  During  these  cen- 
turies, the  philologists,  philosophers,  and  rhetoricians 
attached  to  the  great  schools  of  the  Empire  were  at  the 
same  time  historians  and  poets,  and  consecrated  the 
leisure  left  them  by  their  functions  to  literature.  This 
position  was  assuredly  better  for  their  dignity  and 
independence ;  but  it  had  counterbalancing  drawbacks 
of  which  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak. 

It  is  conceivable  that  all  these  starvelings  in  search 
of  a  Maecenas,  whom  it  was  not  easy  to  find,  should  have 
imagined  nothing  more  happy  than  the  lot  of  Horace. 
They  not  only  envied  him  the  grant  of  the  estate  in  the 
Sabina,  but  they  could  not  get  over  their  surprise  when 
they  saw  him  live  on  such  familiar  terms  with  his  pro- 
tector. They  did  not  enjoy  the  same  good  fortune. 
When  they  came  to  greet  the  master  in  the  morning, 
he  scarcely  vouchsafed  them  recognition  and  a  smile. 
He  left  them  talking  with  his  steward,  who  took  a  good 
deal  of  asking  before  he  would  distribute  to  them  the 
six  or  seven  sesterces  (about  fifteen  pence)  composing 
the  sporhda.  If  the  patron  deigned  to  invite  them  to 
dinner,  it  was  to  humiliate  them  by  all  sorts  of  affronts. 


42      THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

They  were  made  to  sit  at  some  table  apart,  where  they 
were  rudely  treated  by  the  slaves.  While  lobsters, 
murenas,  and  pullets  large  as  geese  passed  before  their 
eyes  for  the  favoured  guests,  they  were  served  with 
only  a  few  crabs  or  gudgeon  caught  near  the  drains 
and  fattened  on  the  filth  of  the  Tiber.^  Being  humble 
from  necessity  and  proud  by  character,  these  outrages 
made  them  indignant,  although  they  were  always  ready 
to  expose  themselves  to  them.  Whenever  they  had 
endured  them,  they  could  not  help  thinking  of  Horace, 
a  man  of  letters,  the  son  of  a  slave,  who  not  only  sat  at 
the  table  of  a  minister  of  state  among  the  greatest 
personages,  but  was  invited  to  his  house  and  treated 
almost  as  an  equal.  This  occasioned  them  as  much 
admiration  as  astonishment.  So  in  time  a  sort 
of  legend  came  into  being  on  the  subject  of  this 
intimacy  between  the  favourite  of  the  Emperor  and  the 
poet.  It  seemed  that  nothing  had  ever  troubled  its 
serenity.  There  was,  as  it  were,  a  perpetual  combat  of 
generosity  and  gratitude  between  the  two  friends,  the 
one  ever  giving,  the  other  ever  thanking,  while  around 
them  the  society  of  Eome  stood  in  ecstasy  before  the 
affecting  picture. 

The  reality  does  not  quite  resemble  the  legend.  It 
is  less  edifying  perhaps,  but  more  instructh^  and 
above  all  it  does  greater  honour  to  Horace.  When  his 
contemporaries  congratulated  him  on  having  slipped 
into  Maecenas'  friendship  as  on  a  happy  chance,  he 
proudly  answered  that  chance  had  nothing  to  do  with 
it.^     He  would  have  made  the  same  reply  to  the  men 

1  Juv.,  Sat.,  Y.  80,  et  seq.  »  Ihicl.,  I.  6,  52. 


Horace's  country  house.  43 

of  letters  of  the  following  century,  who  attributed  the 
position  which  he  made  himself  in  a  world  for  which 
he  was  not  born  solely  to  the  good  fortune  he  had  of 
living  in  a  favourable  atmosphere,  and  the  esteem  then 
professed  for  literature  and  the  lettered.  They  were 
mistaken.  This  position  had  cost  him  more  than  one 
battle.  He  had  won  it,  had  maintained  it  by  the  firm- 
ness of  his  character ;  he  owed  it  to  himself  alone.  He 
could  apply  to  himself  the  famous  saying  of  old  Appius 
Claudius,  for  he  alone  was  "  the  artisan  of  his  fortune." 
I  have  often  heard  rigorous  moralists  treat  Horace 
severely,  and  speak  of  him  as  of  a  mean  and  servile 
person.  Beule  even  declared  one  day  that  he  should  be 
banished  from  the  schools,  because  he  had  only  bad 
lessons  to  teach  our  youth.  Does  youth  then  no  longer 
require  to  be  taught  how  to  come  off  well  in  delicate 
situations,  to  live  with  the  greatest  without  abasing 
itself,  to  maintain  its  freedom  with  all  while  wounding 
the  dignity  of  none, — in  fine,  to  grasp,  between  the 
rudeness  that  loses  all  and  the  obsequiousness  which 
dishonours,  that  degree  of  adit)it  honesty  which  no  one 
can  do  without  in  life  ? 

That  the  connection  between  Horace  and  Maecenas 
was  entirely  free  from  storms  cannot  be  admitted.  The 
most  tender  and  intimate  friendships  are  also  the  most 
delicate,  and  those  in  which  the  least  friction  produces 
the  most  sensible  effects.  Minds,  in  approaching  each 
other,  clash.  This  is  the  law;  the  indifferent  alone 
never  quarrel.  However  great  the  sympathy  which 
drew  Horace  to  his  friend,  causes  of  disagreement  were 
not  wanting.  First  of  all,  Maecenas  was  a  poet,  and  a 
very  bad  poet.     His  verses — obscure,  laboured,  and  full 


44  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

of  mannered  expressions — seemed  made  on  purpose  to 
drive  a  man  of  taste  crazy.  What  must  Horace  think, 
and  what  could  he  say,  when  he  was  admitted  to  the 
honour  of  hearing  them  ?  What  danger  if  he  dared  to 
express  his  sentiments!  What  a  humiliation  for  him, 
and  what  a  triumph  for  his  enemies,  if  he  were  reduced 
to  admire  them  !  We  do  not  know  how  Horace  avoided 
this  rock  in  intimate  intercourse ;  but  it  at  least  is 
certain  that  in  his  works  he  never  said  a  word  about 
Maecenas'  verses.  He  calls  him  a  learned  man  {docte 
McBcenas),  but  of  all  his  works  he  only  speaks  of  a 
history  in  prose,  not  yet  begun,  and  which  was  probably 
never  finished.  He  might  praise  it  without  compromis- 
ing himself.  This  prudent  reserve  seems  not  to  have 
wounded  Maecenas,  which  proves  him  a  clever  man, 
devoid  of  the  littleness  of  the  professional  author.  It 
does  honour  to  the  two  friends. 

A  thing  of  greater  peril  for  Horace  was  the  mixture 
of  men  of  the  world  and  men  of  letters  found  in  the 
palace  of  the  Esquiline.  These  two  classes  are  not 
always  in  unison  with  each  other,  and  when  one  tries 
to  make  them  live  together  there  is  a  risk  of  collision. 
In  Maecenas'  house  the  men  of  the  world  belonged  to 
the  highest  Eoman  aristocracy.  They  were  persons  of 
refined  taste,  who  knew  and  respected  all  observances — 
slaves  to  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  sometimes  its 
creators.  They  could  not  help  indulging  in  raillery 
when  they  saw  their  neighbours,  the  men  of  letters, 
fail  in  those  sacred  customs  which  are  rigorous  laws 
for  some  few  months,  and  then  suddenly  become  ridi- 
culous anachronisms.  Sometimes  the  poor  poets  com- 
mitted this  unpardonable  crime  without  knowing  it. 


Horace's  country  house.  45 

They  did  not  always  obey  the  rules  which  the  master 
had  set  forth  in  his  book  concerning  his  toilette  {de 
Cidtic  siw).  They  arrived  ill -combed,  ill -shod,  ill- 
dressed  ;  they  wore  old  linen  under  a  new  tunic ;  ^  they 
had  not  taken  time  to  adjust  their  toga  properly. 
Seeing  them  thus  accoutred,  those  present  burst  out 
laughing,  and  Maecenas  laughed  like  the  rest.  I  do  not 
think  the  victims  of  these  railleries  felt  them  much. 
Virgil,  who  was  absent-minded,  did  not  perceive  them. 
Horace  accepted  them  with  a  good  grace ;  but,  being 
malicious,  sometimes  took  his  revenge.  Those  great 
lords  also  were  not  without  their  oddities  and  absurdi- 
ties, which  could  not  escape  so  acute  a  wit.  Fashion- 
able life  had  then  become  very  exigent  and  refined, 
and  possessed  its  code  and  its  laws.  Dinners  especially 
had  assumed  a  great  importance,  and  were  regarded  as 
a  veritable  affair  of  state.  Varro,  always  pedantic  and 
grave,  even  in  trifles,  undertook  to  set  forth  didacti- 
cally all  the  conditions  which  a  repast  must  fulfil  in 
order  to  be  perfect.^  It  was  a  very  complicated  science, 
and  those  who  surrounded  Maecenas  piqued  themselves 
on  practising  it  to  perfection.  Horace  has  laughed  at 
this  affectation  in  two  of  his  Satires — the  one  in  which 
he  shows  us  the  Epicurean  Catius  busied  in  collecting 
the  precepts  of  the  kitchen ;  the  other  where  he  de- 
scribes the  dinner  of  Nasidienus,  one  of  those  learned 
in  the  art  of  entertaining  one's  guests.  The  two 
pictures  are  very  entertaining — the  Epicurean  amusing 
us  by  the  gravity  with  which  he  expounds  his  precepts ; 
while  the  other  provokes  our  mirth  by  the  fastidious 

1  Ei>ist.,  I.  1,  95.  8  AulxL'Gellc,  XIII.  11. 


46  THE  COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

pains  he  takes  to  maintain  his  reputation,  and  the 
comical  mishaps  which  disconcert  his  plans.  These 
railleries  struck  well-known  personages,  the  friends  of 
Maecenas ;  and  it  may  be  suspected  that  something 
of  them  must  have  rebounded  on  Maecenas  himself. 
Did  he  not  encourage  the  follies  of  Nasidienus  by 
going  to  dine  with  him  ?  Had  he  not,  like  Catius, 
invented  new  dishes,  of  which  Pliny  tells  us  that  his 
authority  made  them  fashionable  while  he  lived,  but 
that  they  could  not  survive  him  ?  ^ 

These,  I  own,  are  little  differences  of  but  small 
importance.  The  real  difficulties  began  somewhat 
later,  and  arose  from  the  liberalities  of  Maecenas  them- 
selves. The  benefits  of  the  great  are  chains.  Horace 
knew  this,  but  at  least  he  tried  to  make  his  light.  At 
first  he  would  not  take  all  that  was  offered  him.  In 
the  ardour  of  his  friendship  Maecenas  wished  to  give 
him  more  and  more  every  day.  Horace  only  accepted 
the  estate  in  the  Sabina.  "  It  is  enough  ;  it  is  even  too 
much,"  he  told  him. 

"  Satis  stqm-que  me  henignitas  tua. 
DitaviV'  2 

He  made  it  also  understood  that  he  could,  in  case  of 
need,  even  do  without  this  estate  which  made  Jiim  so 
happy,  and  did  so  at  the  moment  when  he  was  enjoying 
it  with  the  greatest  zest.  "  If  Fortune  stay  true  to  me, 
I  thank  her ;  but  when  she  shakes  her  wings  to  fly 
from  me,  I'll  give  her  back  her  gifts ;  I  will  wrap  me  in 
my  worth ;  I  can  content  me  with  an  honest  poverty."  ^ 

1  Pliny,  Hist.  Nat.,  VIII.  43  (68).  2  Epode,  I.  31. 

3  Carm.,  III.  29,  53. 


Horace's  country  house.  47 

Here  is  Mcecenas  well  warned.  His  friend  will  not 
sacrifice  his  independence  to  his  fortune ;  he  will 
become  poor  again  rather  than  cease  to  be  free.  A  day 
came  when  he  felt  it  necessary  to  say  so  still  more 
clearly.  He  had  left  Eonie  at  the  beginning  of  August, 
promising  to  remain  in  the  country  only  four  or  five 
days.  But  once  arrived,  he  felt  so  comfortable  there 
that  he  forgot  to  keep  his  promise.  An  entire  month 
passed  without  his  being  able  to  tear  himself  away. 
Maecenas,  who  could  no  longer  live  without  him,  com- 
plained with  some  bitterness ;  perhaps  hinting  in  his 
letter  that  he  had  reckoned  on  more  gratitude.  We 
have  in  Horace's  reply  certainly  one  of  his  best  produc- 
tions.^ It  is  impossible  to  clothe  greater  firnmess  in 
a  gentler  guise.  Through  agreeable  narrations  and 
pleasing  apologues,  his  resolution  shows  itself  as  pre- 
cisely and  clearly  as  possible.  He  will  not  return  in  a 
few  days,  as  is  requested  of  him ;  so  long  as  autumn 
lasts  he  will  not  expose  himself  to  the  fevers.  Nay, 
more,  if  the  winter  promises  to  be  severe,  if  the  Alban 
mount  is  capped  with  snow,  he  will  descend  on  the  side 
of  the  sea,  and  shut  himself  in  some  warm  retreat  to 
work  at  his  ease.  It  is  only  in  spring,  "  with  the  first 
swallow,"  that  he  will  be  back.  This  term,  as  we  see,  is 
very  indefinite.  He  purposely  makes  it  so.  One  would 
think  that  he  was  resolved  by  a  definitive  trial  both  to 
make  his  liberty  accepted  by  others  and  prove  it  to 
himself.  In  order  to  preserve  it,  he  is  ready  to  give 
back  all  that  he  has  received  {cuncta  rcsigno).  The 
house  in  the   Sabina  itself   would   seem   to   him   too 

1  EpisL,  I.  7. 


48  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

dearly  bought  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  repose  and  inde- 
pendence. "  When  one  sees  in  an  exchange  that  what 
one  receives  is  worth  less  than  what  one  gives,  one 
must  leave  at  once  what  one  has  taken  and  retake  what 
one  has  relinquished."  Maecenas  knew  by  this  resolute 
tone  that  Horace  had  come  to  his  decision,  and  did  not 
renew  his  exigency.  In  a  word,  the  conduct  of  the 
poet  on  this  occasion  was  as  clever  as  it  was  honour- 
able. He  knew  that  friendship  demands  a  certain 
equality  between  the  persons  it  unites.  By  avoiding 
exaggerated  submissiveness,  by  safeguarding  his  liberty, 
and  by  upholding  with  jealous  care  the  dignity  of  his 
character,  he  raised  himself  to  the  height  of  him  who 
had  loaded  him  with  his  benefits.  It  is  thus  that  the 
nature  of  their  connection  was  changed,  and  that 
instead  of  remaining  his  froUq^  he  became  his  friend. 
It  must  be  owned  that  the  poets  of  the  following  age 
did  not  imitate  this  example.  They  were  content  to 
overwhelm  the  great  personages  who  protected  them  with 
flattery  and  meanness.  Can  one  be  surprised  that  the 
latter,  seeing  themselves  regarded  as  masters,  treated 
them  like  servants  ? 

V. 

HOW  HORACE  LIVED  AT  HIS  COUNTRY  HOUSE — HIS 
JOURNEYS — HE  ACCUSTOMS  HIMSELF  TO  REGRET 
ROME  NO  MORE — HIS  LAST  YEARS. 

It  is  very  annoying  that  Horace,  who  has  described 
with  so  many  details  the  employment  of  his  days  while 
he  remained  in  Eome,  should  not  have  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  tell  us  as  clearly  how  he  spent  his  life  in  the 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  49 

country.  The  only  thing  we  know  with  certainty  is 
that  he  was  very  happy  there.  He  for  the  first  time 
tasted  the  pleasure  of  being  a  proprietor.  "  I  take  my 
meals,"  said  he,  "  before  household  gods  that  are  mine 
own "  (Ante  Lare7ii  2^'i'oprm77i  vescor)}  To  have  a 
hearth,  domestic  gods,  to  fix  his  life  in  a  dwelling  of 
which  he  was  the  master,  was  the  greatest  happiness 
that  could  befall  a  Eoman.  To  enjoy  it,  Horace  had 
waited  until  he  was  more  than  thirty  years  of  age.  We 
have  seen  that  his  domain,  when  he  took  possession  of 
it,  was  very  much  neglected,  and  that  the  house  was 
falling  into  ruins.  He  first  had  to  build  and  plant.  Do 
not  let  us  pity  him  ;  these  cares  have  their  charms. 
One  loves  one's  house  when  one  has  built  or  repaired 
it,  and  the  very  trouble  our  land  costs  us  attaches  us  to 
it.  He  came  to  it  as  often  as  he  could,  and  always 
with  pleasure.  Everything  served  him  as  a  pretext  to 
leave  Eome.  It  was  too  hot  there,  or  too  cold;  the 
Saturnalia  were  approaching — an  unbearable  time  of 
the  year,  when  all  the  town  was  out  of  doors  ;  it  was  the 
moment  to  finish  a  work  which  Maecenas  had  pressingly 
required.  Well,  how  could  anything  good  be  done  at 
Rome,  where  the  noises  of  the  street,  the  bustle  of 
intercourse,  the  troublesome  people  one  has  to  visit  or 
receive,  the  bad  verses  one  has  to  listen  to,  take  up  the 
best  part  of  your  time  ?  ^  So  he  put  Plato  with  Men- 
ander  into  his  portmanteau,  took  with  him  the  work  he 
had  begun,  promising  to  do  wonders,  and  started  for 
Tibur.  But  when  he  was  at  home,  his  good  resolutions 
did  not  hold  out.     He  had  something  quite  different  to 

1  ,S'a^.,  II.  6,  66.  275^.^11.3^11. 


50  TitE   COUNtur  0^   HOIi.^Cfi   AXt)   YiRGtL 

do  than  to  shut  himself  up  in  his  study.  He  had  to 
chat  with  his  farmer,  and  superintend  his  labourers. 
He  went  to  see  them  at  work,  and  sometimes  lent  -a 
hand  himself.  He  dug  the  spade  into  the  field,  took 
out  the  stones,  etc.,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the 
neighbours,  who  marvelled  both  at  his  ardour  and  his 
clumsiness : 

^^Rident  vicini  glebas  et  saxa  moventem.'' 

In  the  evening  he  received  at  his  table  a  few  of  the 
neighbouring  proprietors.     They  w^ere  honest  folk,  who 
did  not  speak  ill  of  their  neighbours,  and  who,  unlike 
the  fops  of  Rome,  had  not  for  sole  topic  of  conversation 
the  races  or  the  theatre.     They  handled  most  serious 
questions,  and  their  rustic  wisdom  found  ready  expres- 
sion in  proverbs  and  apologues.     What  pleased  Horace 
above  all  at  these  country  dinners  was  that  etiquette 
was  laughed  at,  that  everything  was  simple  and  frugal, 
that  one  did  not  feel  constrained  to  obey  those  silly  laws 
which  Yarro   had   drawn  up,  and  which  had  become 
the  code  of  good  company.     Nobody  thought  of  electing 
a  king  of  the  feast,  to  fix  for  the  guests  the  number  of 
cups  that  must  be  drained.     Every  one  ate  according  to 
his  hunger  and  drank  according  to  his  thirst.     "  They 
were,"  said  Horace,  "  divine  repasts  "  {0  nodes  cenceque 
Deum)} 

Yet  he  did  not  always  stay  at  home,  however  great 
the  pleasure  he  felt  in  being  there.  This  steady-going, 
regular  man  thought  it  right  from  time  to  time  to  put 
a  little  irregularity  into  one's  life.  Does  not  a  Grecian 
sage — Aristotle,  I  think — recommend  that  one  excess 

»  EpisL,  I.  14,  39.  'Sat,  II.  6,  65. 


Horace's  country  house.  51 

per  month  be  indulged  in,  in  the  interest  of  health  ?  It 
serves,  at  least,  to  break  the  round  of  habit.  Such  also 
was  the  opinion  of  Horace.  Although  the  most  moderate 
of  men,  he  found  it  pleasant  to  commit  an  occasional 
wildness  {dulce  est  desipere  in  loco)}  With  age  these 
outbursts  had  become  less  frequent,  yet  he  still  loved  to 
break  the  sage  uniformity  of  his  existence  by  some 
pleasure  jaunt.  Then  he  returned  to  Prseneste,  to  Baia,  or 
to  Tarentum,  which  he  had  loved  so  much  in  his  youth. 
Once  he  was  unfaithful  to  these  old  affections,  and 
chose  for  the  goal  of  his  journey  spots  that  were  new 
to  him.  The  occasion  of  the  change  was  as  follows  : 
Antonius  Musa,  a  Greek  physician,  had  just  cured 
Augustus  of  a  very  serious  illness,  which  had  been 
thought  must  prove  fatal,  by  means  of  cold  water. 
Hydrotherapeutics  at  once  became  fashionable.  People 
fled  the  thermal  springs,  formerly  so  much  sought  after, 
to  go  off  to  Clusium,  to  Gabii,  into  the  mountains, 
where  springs  of  icy  water  were  found.  Horace  did  like 
the  rest.  In  the  winter  of  the  year  730,  instead  of 
going  as  usual  towards  Baia,  he  turned  his  little  steed 
towards  Salerno  and  Velia.  This  was  the  affair  of  a 
season.  Next  year  Marullus,  the  Emperor's  son-in-law 
and  heir,  falling  very  ill,  Antonius  Musa  was  hastily 
sent  for,  and  applied  his  usual  remedy.  But  the 
remedy  no  longer  healed,  and  hydrotherapeutics,  which 
had  saved  Augustus,  did  not  prevent  Marullus  from 
dying.  They  were  at  once  forsaken,  and  the  sick  again 
began  following  the  road  to  Baia.  When  Horace 
started   on   these   extraordinary   journeys,  he   took   a 

^  Carm.  ylY.  12,  28. 


62  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

change  of  diet.  "  At  home,"  said  he,  "  I  can  put  up  with 
anything ;  my  Sabine  table  wine  seems  to  me  delicious  ; 
and  I  regale  myself  with  vegetables  from  my  garden 
seasoned  with  a  slice  of  bacon.  But  when  I  have  once 
left  my  house,  I  become  more  particular,  and  beans, 
beloved  though  they  be  of  Pythagoras,  no  longer  suffice 
me."  ^  So  before  starting  in  the  direction  of  Salerno, 
where  he  did  not  often  go,  he  takes  the  precaution  to 
question  one  of  his  friends  as  to  the  resources  of  the 
country ;  whether  one  can  get  fish,  hares,  and  venison 
there,  that  he  may  come  back  home  again  as  fat  as  a 
Phoeacian.  Above  all,  he  is  anxious  to  know  what  is 
drunk  in  those  parts.  He  wants  a  generous  wine  to 
make  him  eloquent,  and  "  which  will  give  him  strength, 
and  rejuvenate  him  in  the  eyes  of  his  young  Lucanian 
sweetheart."  We  see  he  pushes  precaution  a  consider- 
able length.  He  was  not  rich  enough  to  possess  a  house 
of  his  own  at  Baia,  Praeneste,  or  Salerno,  the  spots  fre- 
quented by  all  the  Eoman  fashionable  world,  but  he  had 
his  wonted  lodgings  (deversoria  nota),  where  he  used  to 
put  up.  When  Seneca  was  at  Baia,  he  lived  above  a 
public  bath,  and  he  has  furnished  us  a  very  amusing 
account  of  the  sounds  of  all  kinds  that  troubled  his  rest. 
Horace,  who  liked  his  ease  and  wished  to  be  quiet, 
could  not  make  a  very  long  stay  in  those  noisy  places. 
His  whim  gratified,  he  returned  as  soon  as  possible  to 
his  peaceful  house  amid  the  fields,  and  I  can  well 
imagine  that  those  few  fatiguing  weeks  made  it  seem 
more  pleasant  and  more  sweet  to  him. 

One  cannot  read  his  works  carefully  without  noticing 

1  EpisL,  I.  15,  17. 


HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  53 

that  his  affection  for  his  country  estate  goes  on  con- 
stantly increasing.  At  first,  when  he  had  passed  a  few 
weeks  there,  the  memory  of  Eome  used  to  re- awaken  in 
his  thoughts.  Those  large  towns,  which  we  hate  when 
we  are  forced  to  live  in  them,  have  only  to  be  left  in 
order  to  be  regretted  !  When  Horace's  slave,  taking  an 
unfair  advantage  of  the  liberty  of  the  Saturnalia,  tells 
his  master  so  many  unpleasant  things,  he  reproaches 
him  with  never  being  pleased  where  he  is  : 

"  Bomce  rns  optas,  ahsentem  villicus  urbem 
Tollis  ad  astra  levis  ?  "  ^ 

He  was  himself  very  much  vexed  at  his  inconstancy, 
and  accused  himself  "  of  only  loving  Eome  when  he  was 
at  Tibur,  and  only  thinking  of  Tibur  from  the  moment  he 
found  himself  in  Eome."  ^  However  he  cured  himself 
at  last  of  this  levity,  which  annoyed  him  so  much.  To 
this  he  bears  witness  in  his  own  favour  in  the  letter 
addressed  to  his  farmer,  where  he  strives  to  convince 
him  that  one  may  be  happy  without  having  a  public- 
house  next  door.  "As  for  me,"  he  tells  him,  "thou 
knowest  that  I  am  self-consistent,  and  that  each  time 
hated  business  recalls  me  to  Eome  I  leave  this  spot 
with  sadness."  He  doubtless  arranged  matters  so  as  to 
live  more  and  more  at  his  country  house.  He  looked 
forward  to  a  time  when  it  would  be  possible  for  him 
scarcely  ever  to  leave  it,  and  counted  upon  it  to  enable 
him  to  bear  more  lightly  the  weight  of  his  closing 
years. 

They  are  heavy,  whatever  one  may  do,  and  age  never 
comes  without  bringing  many  griefs.     Firstly,  the  long- 

^SaL,  II.  7,  28.  ^-E^^ist.,  I.  8,  12. 


54  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

lived  must  needs  leave  many  friends  upon  the  way. 
Horace  lost  some  to  whom  he  was  very  tenderly  attached 
— he  had  the  misfortune  to  survive  Virgil  and  Tibullus 
ten  years.  What  regrets  must  he  have  felt  on  the  death 
of  the  great  poet  of  whom  he  said  "  he  knew  no  soul 
more  bright,  and  had  no  better  friend  ! "  ^  The  great 
success  of  Virgil's  posthumous  work  could  only  have  half 
consoled  him  for  his  loss,  for  he  regretted  in  him  the 
man  as  much  as  the  poet.  He  had  also  great  cause  to 
grieve  for  Mi^cenas,  whom  he  so  dearly  loved.  This 
favourite  of  the  Emperor,  this  king  of  fashion,  whose 
fortune  all  men  envied,  finished  by  being  very  unhappy. 
It  is  all  very  well  to  take  every  kind  of  precaution  in 
order  to  insure  one's  happiness — to  fly  from  business,  to 
seek  pleasure,  to  amass  wealth,  to  gather  clever  men 
about  one,  to  surround  oneself  with  all  the  charms  of 
existence ;  *  however  one  may  try  to  shut  the  door  on 
them,  troubles  and  sorrows  find  a  way  in.  The  saddest 
of  it  all  is  that  Maecenas  was  first  unhappy  through  his 
own  fault.  Somewhat  late  in  life  this  prudent,  wise 
man  had  been  foolish  enough  to  marry  a  coquette,  and 
to  fall  deeply  in  love  with  her.^  He  had  rivals,  and 
among  them  the  Emperor  himself,  of  whom  he  dared 
not  be  jealous.  He  who  had  laughed  so  much  at  others 
afforded  the  Eomans  a  comedy  at  his  own  expense.  His 
time  was  passed  in  leaving  Terentia,  and  taking  her  back 
again.  "  He  has  been  married  more  than  a  hundred 
times,"  said  Seneca,  "  althoudi  he  has  had  but  one  wife."  * 

^Epist.,l.Uy  17.  ^Sat.,l,5,A2. 

^  "  II  avait  eu  le  tort — im  homme  si  prudent  et  si  sage  ! — d'epouser 
siir  le  tard  une  coquette  et  d'en  devenir  trts  ainoureux." 
4  Sen.,  Epist.,  I.  14,  6. 


hoeace's  country  house.  55 

To  these  domestic  troubles  illness  was  added.  His 
health  had  never  been  good,  and  age  and  sorrows  made 
it  worse.  Pliny  tells  us  that  he  passed  three  whole 
years  without  being  able  to  sleep.^  Enduring  pain 
badly,  he  grieved  his  friends  beyond  measure  by  his 
groans.  Horace,  with  whom  he  continually  conversed 
about  his  approaching  end,  answered  him  in  beautiful 
verses  :  "  Thou,  Maecenas,  die  first !  thou,  stay  of  my 
fortune,  adornment  of  my  life  !  The  gods  will  not  allow 
it,  and  I  will  not  consent.  Ah !  if  Fate,  hastening  its 
blows,  should  tear  from  me  part  of  myself  in  thee, 
what  would  betide  the  other  ?  What  should  I  hence- 
forth do,  hateful  unto  myself,  and  but  half  of  myself 
surviving  ? "  ^ 

In  the  midst  of  these  sorrows,  Horace  himself  felt 
that  he  was  growing  old.  The  hour  when  one  finds 
oneself  face  to  face  with  age  is  a  serious  one.  Cicero, 
when  approaching  it,  tried  to  give  himself  courage  in 
advance,  and  being  accustomed  to  console  himself  for 
everything  by  writing,  he  composed  his  de  Senectute,  a 
charming  book  in  which  he  tries  to  deck  the  closing 
years  of  life  with  certain  beauties.  He  had  not  to  make 
use  of  the  consolations  which  he  prepared  for  himself,  so 
we  do  not  know  whether  he  would  have  found  them 
sufficient  when  the  moment  came.  That  spirit,  so 
young,  so  full  of  life,  would,  I  fear,  have  resigned  itself 
with  difficulty  to  the  inevitable  decadencies  of  ao^e. 
Nor  did  Horace  love  old  age,  and  in  his  Ars  Poetica  he 
has  drawn  a  somewhat  gloomy  picture  of  it.  He  had 
all  the  more  reason  to  detest  it  because  it  came  to  him 

1  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.,  VII.  51  (52).  2  (j^^,^^  ^    ^j   3^ 


56  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

rather  early.  In  one  of  those  passages  where  he  so 
willingly  gives  us  the  description  of  his  person,  he  tells 
us  that  his  hair  whitened  quickly. i  As  a  climax  of  mis- 
fortune he  had  grown  very  fat,  and  being  short,  his 
corpulence  was  very  unbecoming  to  him.  Augustus,  in 
a  letter,  compares  him  to  one  of  those  measures  of 
liquids  which  are  broader  than  they  are  high.^  If,  in 
spite  of  these  too  evident  signs  which  warned  him  of 
his  age,  he  had  tried  to  deceive  himself,  there  was  no 
lack  of  persons  to  disabuse  him.  There  was  the  porter 
of  Neaera,  who  no  longer  allowed  his  slave  to  enter,  an 
affront  which  Horace  was  obliged  to  put  up  with  with- 
out complaining.  "My  hair  whitening,"  said  he, 
"  warns  me  not  to  quarrel.  I  should  not  have  been  so 
patient  in  the  time  of  my  boiling  youth,  when  Planeus 
was  consul."  ^  Then  it  was  Ne^era  herself  who  declined 
to  come  when  he  summoned  her,  and  again  resigning 
himself  with  a  good  enough  grace,  the  poor  poet  found 
that,  after  all,  she  was  right,  and  that  it  was  natural 
love  should  prefer  youth  to  ripened  age. 

Quo  hlandm  juvenum  te  revocmit  preces."^ 

Fortunately  he  was  not  of  a  melancholy  disposition, 
like  his  friends  TibuUus  and  Virgil.  He  even  had 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  melancholy,  which  differ 
widely  from  ours.  Whereas,  since  Lamartine,  we  have 
assumed  the  habit  of  regarding  sadness  as  one  of  the 
essential  elements  of  poetry,  he  thought,  on  the  con- 

1  EpisL,  I.  20,  24. 

2  Suet.,  Fita  Hor.,  p.  47  (Reiferscheid's  edition). 
»  Carm.,  III.  14,  25.  "  Ibid.,  IV.  7. 


•  HORACE'S  COUNTRY  HOUSE.  57 

trary,  that  poetry  has  the  privilege  of  preventing  us 
from  being  sad.  "A  man  protected  by  the  Muses," 
said  he,  "  flings  cares  and  sorrows  to  the  winds  to  bear 
away."  ^  His  philosophy  had  taught  him  not  to  revolt 
against  inevitable  ills.  However  painful  they  be,  one 
makes  them  lighter  by  bearing  them.^  So  he  accepted 
old  age  because  it  cannot  be  eluded,  and  because  no 
means  have  yet  been  found  of  living  long  without  grow- 
ing old.  Death  itself  did  not  frighten  him.  He  was 
not  of  those  who  reconcile  themselves  to  it  as  well  as 
they  can  by  never  thinking  about  it.  On  the  contrary, 
he  counsels  us  to  have  it  always  in  mind.  "  Think  that 
the  day  which  lights  you  is  the  last  you  have  to  live. 
The  morrow  will  have  more  charm  for  you  if  you  did 
not  hope  to  see  it "  : 

"  Omnem  crede  diem  tihi  diluxisse  supremum  ; 
Grata  suyerveniet  quce  non  sperahitur  hora.'^  - 

This  is  not,  as  might  be  supposed,  one  of  those 
bravadoes  of  the  timid,  who  shout  before  Death  in  order 
to  deaden  the  sound  of  his  footsteps.  Horace  was  never 
more  calm,  more  energetic,  more  master  of  his  mind  and 
of  his  soul,  than  in  the  works  of  his  ripe  age.  The  last 
lines  of  his  that  remain  to  us  are  the  firmest  and  most 
serene  he  ever  wrote. 

Then,  more  than  ever,  must  he  have  loved  the  little 
Sabine  valley.  When  we  visit  these  beautiful  tranquil 
spots,  we  tell  ourselves  that  they  appear  made  to  shelter 
the  declining  years  of  a  sage.  It  seems  as  if  with  old 
servants,  a  few  faithful  friends,  and  a  stock  of  well- 

1  Carm.,  I.  26,  1. 

2  Ibid.,   I.  24,  19. 


58  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

chosen  books,  the  time  must  pass  there  without  sadness. 
But  I  must  stop.  Since  Horace  has  not  taken  us  into 
his  confidence  respectinpj  his  last  years,  and  nobody 
after  him  has  told  us  of  them,  we  are  reduced  to  form 
conjectures,  and  we  should  put  as  few  of  them  as 
possible  into  the  life  of  a  man  who  loved  truth  so  well. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO. 

There  is  a  famous  saying  of  Tacitus,  that  imagination 
transfigures  all  that  is  unknown  to  us  and  makes  it 
appear  marvellous  :  "  Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico  est."  ^ 
Ovid,  on  the  contrary,  holds  that  we  cannot  desire  the 
unknown  :  "  Jgnoti  nulla  cupido ;  "  ^  and  although  they 
seem  to  contradict  each  other,  I  think  they  are  both 
right.  The  unknown  produces  contrary  effects  upon 
us,  according  to  the  diversity  of  our  natures ;  some  it 
attracts,  others  it  repels.  We  see  this  well  by  what 
happens  in  the  case  of  the  Etruscans.  Many  of  the 
learned  find  a  sort  of  provoking  charm  in  the  very 
obscurity  which  shrouds  the  origin  of  this  people,  in 
the  little  that  is  known  of  its  history,  in  the  hitherto 
existing  impossibility  of  understanding  its  language. 
These  are  enigmas  they  fain  would  solve,  and  so  pas- 
sionate is  their  desire,  that  failure  stimulates  instead  of 
disheartening  them.  The  less  they  attain  to  knowledge, 
the  more  they  seek  to  know.  Others  resign  themselves 
to  ignorance  much  more  easily.  They  even  suspect 
that  in  this  civilization  which  so  obstinately  refuses  to 

1  Agric,  30.  2  Arsam.y  III.  397. 


60  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

be  guessed  there  was  nothing  worth  knowing.  So  they 
are  inexhaustible  in  their  sarcasms  at  the  foolish  curi- 
osity of  these  poor  pundits  who  delight  to  wander  in 
the  dark,  and  lose  their  trouble  and  their  time  in  trying 
to  solve  the  insolvable.^ 

I  must  own  myself  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  curious. 
Although  their  obstinacy  has  not  always  been  fortunate, 
I  do  not  find  it  ridiculous.  Eeluctance  to  remain 
ignorant  of  the  past  history  of  a  race  which  held  an 
important  place  among  ancient  nations  is  a  thing  I 
cannot  understand.  When  I  see  in  a  museum  the 
beautiful  works  which  the  Etruscans  have  left  us,  I 
am  seized  by  an  ardent  desire  to  know  who  made 
them.  I  cannot  pass  unmoved  those  great  statues  of 
stone  or  terra-cotta  lying  stretched  on  their  sarcophagi, 
leaning  upon  their  elbows,  and  seeming  to  look  at  the 
visitors.  They  are  so  true,  so  living,  that  I  always 
want  to  question  them  about  their  history,  and  ask 
them  for  their  secret. 

If  this  secret  has  been  so  well  kept,  if  it  is  so  difficult 
to  know  this  strange,  mysterious  people,  it  is  not  because, 
like  so  many  others,  it  has  disappeared  entirely.  There 
are  few,  indeed,  of  whom  so  many  relics  remain.  The 
amount  of  things  that  have  been  taken  from  their  cities 
of  the  dead  during  the  last  three  centuries  is  incredible. 
The  museums  of  the  entire  world  are  full  of  their  spoils; 

1  Mommsen  is  one  of  these  scoffers,  and  the  most  pitiless.  At 
the  beginning  of  his  Roman  History  he  rallies  people  who  pile  up 
hypotheses  about  the  Etruscans  and  their  origin.  "Archaeologists," 
he  says,  **  have  a  mania  for  fondly  seeking  to  know  what  cannot  be 
known,  and  isn't  worth  knowing."  Then  he  compares  them  to  those 
erudite  fools  of  antiquity  whom  Tiberius  jeeringly  asked  "  Who  was 
Hecuba's  mother  ? " 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       61 

they  have  left  us  precious  objects  of  every  kind,  and 
the  harvest  is  far  from  being  gathered.  The  Louvre 
already  possesses  many  painted  vases,  due  to  the 
liberalities  of  Caylus,  Porbin,  and  other  enlightened 
amateurs,  and  to  the  acquisition  of  the  collections  of 
MM.  Durand  and  Fochon ;  and  it  might  have  been  con- 
sidered one  of  the  museums  richest  in  Etruscan  antiqui- 
ties even  before  1862,  when,  through  the  intermediary 
of  M.  Leon  Eenier^  the  State  acquired  the  Campana  col- 
lection, which  more  than  doubled  its  riches.  It  contained 
vases,  pictures,  jewels  of  the  greatest  value,  together 
with  a  marvellous  gathering  of  terra-cottas,  mostly 
from  Campania  and  Etruria.  Three  large  rooms  were 
filled  with  what  had  been  found  in  the  tombs  of  ancient 
Coere  alone.  So  an  idea  of  this  little-known  civilization 
may  be  found  without  leaving  Paris,  and  by  simply 
visiting  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre.  It  is  a  journey 
within  the  reach  of  all,  and  from  which  all  may  derive 
great  profit. 

Yet  the  best  way  to  study  the  Etruscans  is  to  go  and 
see  them  at  home.  The  thousand  objects  we  view  with 
curiosity  in  the  cases  of  a  museum  are  much  more  curious 
still,  and  teach  us  more,  when  found  in  their  natural 
place.  One  knows  their  purpose,  and  better  understands 
their  character.  Among  Etruscan  cities,  few  have  kept 
so  many  mementoes  of  their  glorious  past  as  Corneto, 
the  ancient  Tarquinii.  It  is  thither  we  must  go  in 
order  to  study  ancient  Etruria  on  the  spot.  Not  only 
does  this  town  possess  a  larger  number  of  ancient 
monuments  than  the  rest,  but  we  have  the  advantage 
here  of  their  having  been  studied  by  distinguished 
savants,  and,   above   all,   by   Dr  Helbig,   one   of    the 


62  THE  COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

directors  of  the  Archseological  Institution  at  Rome, 
who  has  already  assisted  us  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
paintings  at  Pompeii.^  I  cannot  perhaps  do  better 
than  use  his  labours,  and,  following  in  his  footsteps, 
visit  with  him  the  tombs  of  Corneto. 


HOW  TARQUINII  DISAPPEARED — CORNETO — RELICS  OF  THE 
MIDDLE  AGES  AND  THE  RENAISSANCE  AT  CORNETO — 
THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS — GENERAL  ASPECT. 

Travelling  over  maritime  Etruria  used  to  be  trouble- 
some work ;  and  to  risk  oneself  in  these  unhealthy, 
sparsely  -  populated  regions  presupposed  considerable 
curiosity  and  no  small  amount  of  courage.  To-day 
nothing  is  easier.  A  very  interesting  railway  skirts 
the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  from  Genoa  to  Palo, 
and  being  the  shortest  route  from  Turin  to  Eome,  is 
very  much  used.  One  does  not  think  of  stopping  at 
the  intermediate  stations,  it  is  true,  nor  does  what  one 
sees  of  the  Tuscan  Maremma  in  this  rapid  flight  make 
one  wish  to  visit  it  more  nearly.  Yet  it  is  wrong 
to  do  so;  and  a  traveller  stopping  at  Corneto,  and 
remaining  there  at  least  an  entire  day,  would  not  have 
reason  to  complain  that  the  time  was  lost. 

Corneto  is  situated  between  Orbetelli  and  Civita 
Vecchia.  It  is  now  a  little  town  of  some  few  thousand 
inhabitants,  perched  upon  a  verdant  hill,  and  viewed 

^  See  Promenades  ArcMologiques,  p.  318  and  following.  The  works 
of  Dr  Helbig  on  the  paintings  at  Corneto  are  contained  in  the  Annales 
de  VInstitut  dc  Correspondanee  Archeologique. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.  63 

from  below,  strikes  one  by  the  number  of  its  turrets. 
It  is  rather  fatiguing  work  to  get  there,  for  the  ascent  of 
the  hill-side  is  a  rough  one,  but  once  on  the  summit, 
the  view  enjoyed  repays  us  for  our  pains.  Before  us  is 
the  sea,  with  Monte  Argcntaro  seeming  from  a  distance 
to  fling  itself  into  the  waves.  Turning  towards  the 
land  side,  we  see  a  little  river,  la  Marta,  plunging  into 
the  valley  through  the  trees.  Facing  us,  a  hill  rises 
opposite  to  that  on  which  Corneto  is  built.  They 
are  only  separated  by  a  little  smiling,  fertile  plain ;  and 
a  few  kilometres  further  on  they  approach  each  other, 
and  end  by  joining,  so  as  to  form  a  kind  of  low 
semicircle.  Corneto  occupies  the  extremity  of  the  one 
nearest  to  the  sea;  Tarquinii  was  built  on  the  other, 
just  opposite  to  where  Corneto  now  stands. 

Tarquinii  was  one  of  the  largest  and  most  important 
cities  of  Etruria.  Its  wall  was  eight  kilometres  round. 
There,  it  is  said,  in  the  first  year  of  Eome,  the  Corin- 
thian Demaratus  came  to  settle,  bringing  with  him  all 
his  riches,  together  with  his  family  and  his  clients, 
some  of  whom  were  distinguished  Grecian  artists. 
"When  war  broke  out  between  Etruria  and  the  Eomans, 
Tarquinii  chiefly  bore  the  brunt  of  it.  Its  inhabitants 
defended  their  independence  bravely,  and  Eome  could 
only  complete  its  subjection  after  a  simultaneous 
massacre  of  all  its  aristocracy.  In  losing  its  liberty,  it 
necessarily  lost  much  of  its  importance.  Yet  Cicero 
still  calls  it  "  a  very  flourishing  city."  ^  How  came  it 
to  disappear  entirely  later  on,  and  to  spring  up  again 
in  another  place  and  under  a   different   name  ?     We 

1  De  Rep.,  H.  18. 


64  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

know  but  very  imperfectly,  but  vicissitudes  of  this 
kind  seem  to  have  been  inherent  to  the  destinies  of 
Etruscan  cities.  They  had  very  checkered  fortunes, 
and  it  was  the  fate  of  many  to  die  and  come  to  life 
again.  This  is  explained,  if  one  considers  the  sur- 
rounding country.  It  is  at  once  attractive  and  terrible, 
fertile  and  plague-stricken.     It  is  the  Maremma — 

'^  Dilettevole  molto  e  ijoco  sana," 

as  a  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century  says.  It  has  not 
the  desolate  look  of  the  Eoman  Campagna,  although  as 
fearful  to  live  in.  In  the  plains  vegetation  is  vigorous, 
and  the  hills  are  covered  with  cork  oaks,  mastic  trees, 
and  carobs.  "  How  often,"  says  M.  Noel  des  Vergers, 
"  while  seeking  under  the  luxuriant  vegetation  of  the 
forests  for  traces  of  the  mysterious  nation  that  used  to 
people  these  deserts,  and  finding  so  many  proofs  of  its 
sojourn,  have  I  begun  to  doubt  that  in  these  fragrant 
woods,  these  pasturages,  this  air,  so  soft,  so  mild,  could 
lurk  disease  and  death.  To  convince  me  there  needed 
chance  meetings  with  some  of  the  rare  inhabitants, 
whose  shrunken  features,  dull  eyes,  yellow  hue,  and 
bulging  stomach  all  speak  of  suffering  better  than  the 
most  eloquent  narration  could  do."  ^  To  render  the 
country  habitable  it  was  necessary  to  make  it  healthy, 
and  this  the  Etruscans  did.  That  they  drained  the 
marshes  and  gave  a  better  flow  to  the  rivers  is  beyond 
a  doubt.  Pliny  the  Elder  admired  the  hydraulic  works 
they  had  carried  out  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  while  they 
were  its  masters  ;  they  must  have  done  still  more  for 
the  very  country  which  was  their  cradle  and  the  centre 

^  Noel  des  Vergers,  VEtrurie  et  les  Etrusques,  I.  p.  2. 


THE   ETRUSCAN   TOMBS   AT   COENETO.  65 

of  their  domination.  We  may  suppose  that  they  dug 
there  some  of  those  great  drains  that  are  met  with 
everywhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Kome,  and  which, 
to  use  the  expression  of  a  sagacious  observer,  make  all 
the  Tiber  basin  and  the  slopes  of  the  Alban  Mount  look 
like  a  gigantic  warren.^  But  these  works  are,  by  their 
very  nature,  delicate  and  fragile.  Nature  can  only  be 
subdued  at  the  cost  of  an  endless  struggle.  If  we  relax 
a  moment,  she  reassumes  all  her  empire.  A  few  years 
of  negligence  suffice  to  lose  the  fruits  of  many  years  of 
eftbrt — the  canals  get  choked,  the  ponds  fill,  and 
miasmas  begin  to  infect  the  air  again.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  the  descendants  of  the  great 
Medici  having  ceased  to  encourage  the  works  under- 
taken by  their  ancestors  for  the  purpose  of  rendering 
the  environs  of  Lake  Castiglione  more  healthy,  and 
allowed  the  Fosso  di  Navigazione  which  joined  this  lake 
to  a  neighbouring  river  to  become  obstructed,  it  was 
remarked  that  in  a  few  years  the  population  of  Grossetto 
fell  from  3,000  souls  to  700,  and  that  the  adjacent  Cam- 
pagna,  instead  of  sowing  l,o00  measures  of  corn  every 
year  as  formerly,  only  sowed  300.  The  above  example 
shows  us  how  quickly  things  degenerate  in  this  countr}^, 


1  These  small  tunnels,  generally  1  m.  50  high,  and  sometimes 
several  kilometres  in  extent,  have  long  been  known.  They  are  so 
numerous  in  the  Roman  Campagna  that  it  was  difficult  not  to  notice 
them  ;  but  their  purpose  was  not  suspected.  It  is  now  generally 
agreed  that  they  formed  a  kind  of  drainage  destined  to  dry  the  soil 
and  fight  the  malaria.  On  this  subject  the  monks  of  M.  Thomasi 
Crudeli,  director  of  the  Anatomical  and  Physiological  Institution  of 
Rome,  may  be  consulted,  and  an  article  of  M.  de  la  Blanchere  in  the 
Melanges  d' archeologie  et  d'histoire  (Vol.  II.)  published  by  the  Ecoie 
Francaise. 

E 


6G  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

and  also  explains  how  the  depopulation  and  ruin  of  the 
Etruscan  cities  proceeded  so  rapidly,  and  why,  in  some 
cases,  it   was   so   complete.       Their   decadence  began 
directly  after  their  defeat  by  the  Eomans.     Towards 
the  end  of  the  Eepublic  several  of  them  were  already 
desolate ;    the    malaria,    more    feebly    combated,   had 
resumed  its  power.     Virgil,  speaking  of  Graviscioe,  the 
port   of   Tarquinii,  which   must   have   been   near   the 
mouth   of   the   Marta,   calls    it    an    unhealthy   place. 
Surely  it  could  not  have  been  so  when  the  ships  of 
Greece  and  Carthage  brought  the  merchandise  of  their 
countries  to  these  coasts.     It  had  become  so  since  the 
Etruscans,  having  lost  their  activity  with  their  inde- 
pendence, no  longer  fought  the  terrible  scourge  with  the 
same  energy.    But  the  evil  could  be  repaired.     It  was 
possible,  by  an  increase  of  effort,  to  render  these  lands 
habitable  again  ;    and  as  they  are  fertile  and  smiling, 
and   attract  the  cultivator  by  their  wealth,  he  returns 
courageously,  and  sets  to  work  again  as  soon  as  the 
political  situation  improves,  and  he  can  hope  to  enjoy 
the  fruits  of  his  labour  in  peace.     M.  iSToel  des  Vergers 
bids  us  remark  that  Etruria,  which  seemed  exhausted 
towards  the  end   of  the  Eoman   Eepublic,  under   the 
Empire  all  at  once  revives.     The  Campagna  repeoples, 
and  the  towns  rise  again.     Propertius  tells  us  that  in 
his  time,  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Augustus,  the 
shepherd  led  his  flocks  over  the  ruins  of  Veii.     Under 
the  successors  of  Augustus,  Veii  once  more  became  an 
important  city,  whose  existence  is  revealed  to  us  by 
curious  inscriptions.      Strabo  mentions  Fidenffi  among 
those  ancient  cities  of  Etruria  destroyed  by  war,  and 
become   simple   private    properties.      In    the    time  of 


THE   ETEUSCAN   TOMBS  AT   CORNETO.  67 

Tiberius  Fidena3  is  once  more  an  important  city,  giving 
games  to  which  all  its  neighbours  flock ;  and  Tacitus 
relates  that  at  one  of  these  festivals  more  than  50,000 
persons  were  killed  or  injured  by  the  fall  of  an  amphi- 
theatre. There,  indeed,  we  have  very  rapid  resurrec- 
tions. But  some  time  after,  when  came  the  Empire's 
evil  days,  internal  revolutions,  and  the  disasters  of 
invasion,  the  maritime  coast  of  Etruria  again  became 
depopulated.  The  Gaul,  Eutilius  Namatianus,  who 
passed  along  these  shores  when  returning  home  from 
Eome,  found  them  desolate.  On  his  road  he  only  saw  the 
Campagna  depopulated  by  the  fever,  and  deserted  towns. 
"  Let  not  man  complain  of  death,"  said  he,  surveying 
ancient  Populonia,  whose  monuments  lay  strewn  upon 
the  ground ;  "  here  are  examples  which  teach  us  that 
cities,  too,  may  die."  ^ 

It  is  then  that  Tarquinii,  in  consequence  of  disasters 
of  which  we  know  but  little,  was  abandoned  by  its 
inhabitants.  To-day,  vegetation  has  covered  again 
the  little  that  remains  of  the  old  city.  From  afar  no 
vestige  of  it  is  seen.  We  must  go  about  the  hill 
where  it  was  built,  and  carefully  remove  the  grass,  in 
order  to  discover  the  substructures  of  a  few  walls,  or 
some  fallen  stones.  How  came  the  deserted  city  to 
remove  to  the  other  side  of  the  plain  ?  What  reasons 
could  it  have  for  settling  on  the  neighbouring  hills  ? 
We  do  not  know  ;  but  in  this  new  site  it  shed  a  certain 
lustre  during  the  Middle  Ages.  At  Corneto  some  fine 
monuments  of  that  epoch  are  shown,  especially  the 
church  of  Santa  Maria  in  Castello,  which  has  not  been 

^  Itincr.,  I.  413. 


68      THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

spoiled  by  clumsy  restoration — a  somewhat  rare  case 
in  Italy.  Being  no  longer  used  as  a  place  of  worship,  it 
escapes  the  unenlightened  zeal  of  the  faithful  and  the 
bad  taste  of  village  priests,  and  remains  as  it  was  when 
consecrated  in  the  twelfth  century,  with  a  few  injuries 
of  time  that  do  not  disfigure  it.  It  preserves  intact  its 
cihorium  ornamented  with  light  columns ;  its  marble 
ambo,  just  like  that  of  St  Clement's  at  Eome ;  and 
on  the  broken  slabs  of  the  old  tombs  which  have  served 
to  mend  its  pavement,  we  read  inscriptions  reaching 
back  to  the  first  centuries  of  Christianity.  At  the 
Eenaissance,  Corneto  still  had  a  certain  importance.  A 
family  rich  and  friendly  to  the  Arts,  of  which  there 
were  so  many  at  that  time — the  Yitelleschi — had  a 
magnificent  palace  built  there  on  the  model  of  those  at 
Florence,  and  equal  to  them  in  beauty  and  grandeur. 
As  with  them,  the  lower  part  is  like  a  fortress,  while 
in  the  upper  part  elegance  holds  sway  ;  so  that  strength 
and  grace  commingle  in  the  most  unexpected  manner. 
Our  surprise  is  great  in  going  over  Corneto  to  find,  in 
a  little  town  isolated  on  a  rock  in  the  midst  of  a  desert, 
a  church  like  St  Clement's,  and  a  palace  recalling 
by  its  proportions  and  its  architecture  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  Florence.  But  we  are  in  Italy,  where  surprises 
of  this  sort  are  not  uncommon.  Elsewhere  Art  seems 
to  have  reserved  itself  for  towns ;  but  in  this  privileged 
country  it  has  grown  with  such  vigour,  has  flowed .  in 
such  abundance,  that  it  sometimes  overflowed  into  the 
very  villages. 

But  one  does  not  come  to  Corneto  in  order  to  study 
the  Middle  Ages  of  the  Eenaissance.  They  are  found 
represented  elsewhere  by  monuments  more  beautiful  and 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS   AT  CORNETO.  69 

more  numerous  yet.  Here  we  are  only  looking  for  the 
Etruscans.  So  we  must  be  content  with  a  rapid  glance 
at  Santa  Maria  in  Castello  and  the  Vitelleschi  palace, 
and  hasten  to  see  what  remains  of  this  lost  people  of 
ancient  times. 

Our  expectation  will  not  be  deceived,  and  we  shall 
be  able  to  satisfy  ourselves  fully.  Corneto  gives  a  good 
example  to  other  Italian  towns  by  the  care  she  takes  of 
her  antiquities.  She  is  very  proud  of  her  past,  and  not 
only  has  she  added  the  old  name  of  Tarquinii  to  her 
own  {Corneto  Tarquinia) — a  gratification  of  her  vanity 
which  cost  her  nothing — but  she  incurs  great  outlay  in 
order  to  house  her  riches  well  and  to  increase  them. 
These  expenses  are  borne  by  the  town  and  by  a  local 
Society,  TUniversita  Agraria,  which  has  generously 
undertaken  to  bear  half  the  burden.  M.  Luigi  Dasti, 
the  mayor,  is  a  man  of  refinement,  who  loves  his  little 
town  very  much,  and  he  sustains  everybody's  zeal. 
Thanks  to  him,  it  has  been  possible  to  carry  on  the 
excavations  for  the  last  ten  years,  although  the  Govern- 
ment has  encouraged  them  but  little.  Fresh  tombs 
have  been  discovered,  others  unearthed  anew,  and  a 
museum  has  been  founded  destined  soon  to  become  one 
of  the  richest  in  Italy.  This  museum  and  these  tombs 
are  precisely  what  attract  the  stranger  to  Corneto. 

He  has  not  far  to  go  to  see  the  tombs  ;  for  the  very 
hill  on  which  Corneto  stands  was  the  Necropolis  of 
Tarquinii.  From  their  windows  the  inhabitants  of  the 
great  city  could  see  their  family  sepulchres  rise  one 
above  another  opposite,  to  them.  The  spectacle  of 
death  did  not  then  seem  painful  to  them — a  proof  that 
they  were  not  like  their  descendants,  the  Tuscans  of 


70  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORA.CE  AND  VIRGIL. 

to-day,  who  carefully  hide  their  funerals,  celebrate 
them  at  night,  and  carry  off  their  dead  at  racing  speed, 
as  if  to  get  rid  of  them  as  soon  as  possible.  Tarquinii 
having  existed  during  ten  centuries,  the  hill  which 
served  it  as  a  cemetery  is  pierced  with  tombs.  Thou- 
sands have  been  discovered  and  there  remain  many 
more  than  have  been  found.  Naturally,  the  simple 
sepulchres  are  the  commonest;  but  there  are  also 
handsome  ones  that  belonged  to  great  families.  Twenty- 
eight  are  known  to-day  ornamented  with  mural 
paintings,  and  it  is  with  them  we  shall  chiefly  have 
to  do. 

All  are  cut  in  the  rock,  at  depths  varying  from  two 
to  twelve  metres ;  and  there  must  formerly  have  been 
some  sign  above  the  soil  to  indicate  the  existence  of 
the  tomb  within.  This  was  doubtless  a  more  or  less 
massy  mound  of  turf,  in  one  of  whose  sides  was  the 
door  giving  access  to  the  vault.  In  the  midst  of  the 
desolate  plain  of  Vulei,  in  the  plague-struck  wilderness 
by  which  the  great  city  has  been  replaced,  rises  a 
tumulus,  fifteen  metres  high  and  two  hundred  metres  in 
circumference.  It  is  called  in  the  neighbourhood  "  la 
Cucumella."  It  is  a  mass  of  accumulated  earth  covering 
two  domes  of  masonry.  Eound  towers,  of  which 
traces  are  still  seen,  rose  above  the  monument.  They 
were  surmounted  by  symbolic  animals,  winged  sphinxes, 
lions  crouching  or  standing,  destined  to  frighten  away 
evil  spirits.  Although  it  has  not  yet  been  possible  to 
pierce  the  stone  arched  roof,  and  the  Cucumella  obstin- 
ately keeps  its  secret,  it  may  be  affirmed  to  have  been 
the  top  of  a  tomb.  There  is  no  longer  anything  of  the 
kind  at  Corneto.     The  tumuli  have  all  disappeared,  and 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       71 

only  the  underground  part,  the  sepulchres,  have  been 
preserved.  These  subterranean  tombs  are  of  very 
unequal  size.  The  greater  number  consist  of  a  square 
chamber  three  or  four  metres  in  measurement.  But 
some  of  them  contain  several  rooms,  while  others  are  so 
vast  that  it  has  been  necessary  to  have  pillars  to  support 
the  roof.  The  dead  repose  in  large  sarcophagi  of  stone 
or  terra-cotta.  When  they  have  been  burnt,  their 
ashes  are  placed  in  urns  of  varied  form.  The  same 
sepulchre  sometimes  contains  both  urns  and  sarcophagi, 
showing  that  both  modes  of  burial  were  practised  at  the 
same  epoch.  In  some  ancient  tombs,  the  dead,  clad  in 
his  finest  apparel  and  decked  with  his  arms,  lay 
stretched  upon  a  bed  of  state.  Those  who  had  the 
good  fortune  to  penetrate  first,  when  all  was  still  intact, 
have  described  to  us  the  emotion  with  which  they  were 
seized  on  beholding  these  warriors  in  the  very  attitude  in 
which  they  were  left  when  the  vault  was  walled  up,  more 
than  twenty  centuries  ago.  This  sight  generally  dis- 
appears in  a  few  minutes.  The  air,  on  penetrating 
these  funeral  chambers  which  had  been  so  long  closed, 
rapidly  decomposed  the  bodies,  reducing  them  to  dust 
before  the  eyes  of  the  visitors.  "  'Twas  an  evocation  of 
the  past  that  had  not  even  the  duration  of  a  dream." 
Besides  the  arms,  the  beds,  and  the  sarcophagi,  the  tombs 
contained  articles  of  toilet,  mirrors,  weapons,  and,  above 
all,  vases.  Almost  all  these  movables  have  disappeared ; 
they  were  too  tempting  to  robbers.  Even  in  ancient 
times,  despite  the  respect  professed  for  the  dead,  the 
temptation  to  pillage  old  tombs  was  irresistible. 
Theodoric,  judging  it  better  to  authorise  what  he  could 
not  prevent,  allowed  anybody  to  appropriate  the  gold 


72  THE   COUXTRY   OF  HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

found  in  them,  when  they  no  longer  had  a  lawful 
owner  (aurum  sepulchris  juste  detrahctur,  uhi  dominus 
non  hahetur)}  The  moderns  have  continued  to  profit 
by  the  permission,  and  so  well  that  nothing  now 
remains  which  could  be  carried  off — that  is  to  say,  the 
mural  paintings. 

I  cannot  think  of  taking  the  reader  successively 
through  all  the  tombs  of  Corneto,  and  describing  them 
one  after  the  other.  It  would  be  a  tiresome  enumeration, 
for  which  a  good  guide  may  be  substituted  with  advan- 
tage.^ I  prefer  to  suppose  the  visit  paid.  We  have 
gone  through  the  most  important  tombs  by  the  wan 
light  of  the  cerini ;  the  custode  has  shown  the  paintings 
that  decorate  them ;  and  we  have  looked  with  interest 
upon  all  these  scenes,  some  half  destroyed  by  damp, 
others  preserving  after  so  many  centuries  an  extra- 
ordinary brilliancy  and  freshness.  Having  finished  our 
round,  let  us  try  to  sum  up  the  impressions  left  and 
the  reflections  suggested  by  it.  Let  us  ask  ourselves 
what  it  can  teach  us  of  the  people  who  built  these 
tombs,  and  whether  it  be  possible  to  draw  from  it  as  to 
their  manner  of  living,  their  character,  and  their 
beliefs. 


^  Cassiodorus,  Variar.,  IV.  14. 

2  M.  L.  Dasti,  the  Mayor  of  Corneto  of  whom  I  have  just  spoken, 
has  published  two  pamphlets,  entitled  Tombe  Etruche  di  pinte,  and 
Museo  etruseo  Tarqucniese,  which  will  be  of  great  use  to  visitors  of 
these  tombs.  I  may  add  that  this  essay  has  been  translated  into 
Italian,  and  is  sold  at  Corneto  as  a  kind  of  guide  for  strangers.  I 
recall  this  fact  merely  as  a  testimony  to  the  exactness  of  the  descrip- 
tions. 


THE  ETRUSCAN   TOMBS   AT   CORNETO. 


IL 


IMPORTANCE  OF  SEPULTURE  AMONG  THE  ETRUSCANS — THE 
PAINTINGS  IN  THE  TOMBS — FEW  SCENES  OF  SADNESS 
ARE  FOUND  AMONG  THEM — HOW  IT  IS  THEY  SO  OFTEN 
REPRESENT  BANQUETS  AND  GAMES — THE  EXACTNESS 
OF  THESE  PAINTINGS — THE  COSTUME  OF  THE  PERSON- 
AGES IS  THAT  OF  ANCIENT  ROMANS — THE  SMALL 
NUMBER  REPRESENTING  MYTHOLOGICAL  SUBJECTS, 
AND  THE  CONCLUSION  TO  BE  DRAWN  FROM  THIS 
CIRCUMSTANCE — THE  ETRUSCANS  ACCEPT  THE  FABLES 
OF  GREECE  —  TOMB  A  DEL'  ORCO — WHAT  HAPPENS 
TO  THESE  FABLES  AMONG  THE  ETRUSCANS — 
CHARUN. 

What  first  strikes  us  is  the  importance  attached  to 
sepulture.  All  ancient  nations  doubtless  gave  the 
matter  great  weight,  but  still  they  have  left  us  palaces, 
temples,  and  theatres  as  well  as  funeral  monuments  ; 
of  the  Etruscans  we  have  nothing  but  tombs.  They 
evidently,  then,  built  them  with  more  care  than  all  the 
rest,  and  their  minds  must  therefore  have  been  much 
taken  up  with  death.  But  what  idea  had  they  of  it  ? 
One  would  think  that  this  must  be  an  easy  thing  to 
find  out,  and  that  in  order  to  do  so  we  need  only  look 
at  the  pictures  which  decorate  the  tombs.  Unfor- 
tunately, these  paintings  are  not  all  of  the  same  epoch, 
and  many  represent  very  different  states  of  mind. 
Under  the  influence  of  their  neighbours,  the  Etruscans 
have  more  than  once  changed  their  opinions.  These 
variations  must  be  taken  into  account,  in  order  that  we 
may   not   draw   too   general    opinions    from   a   single 


74  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND    VIRGIL. 

picture,  or  attribute  to  one  period  what  belonged  to 
another.  Nor  let  us  forget  that  ancient  religions  had 
no  precise  dogmas,  since  it  is  truth  we  shall  always 
have  before  our  eyes  when  studying  Antiquity.  The 
Etruscans  doubtless  possessed  a  great  number  of  sacred 
books ;  but  although  we  have  lost  them,  we  can  be  sure 
that  none  of  them  contained  a  religious  teaching,  in  the 
sense  we  attach  to  the  word.  There,  as  elsewhere,  the 
priests  only  busied  themselves  with  regulating  the 
practices  of  religion,  all  the  rest  being  left  to  the  free 
interpretation  of  the  faithful.  Even  on  the  question 
which  to  us  seems  the  most  important  of  all — about 
death  and  what  follows  it,  about  hell  and  about  Elysium — 
everybody  thought  merely  what  he  chose.  Hence  the 
artists  of  the  tombs  of  Corneto  were  not,  like  those  of 
the  Catacombs,  fettered  by  fixed  beliefs,  and  rigorously 
bound  to  conform  to  them.  They  could  abandon  them- 
selves more  to  their  caprices.  To  press  too  far  the 
meaning  of  the  scenes  they  portray ;  to  attribute 
formal  intention  to  the  least  details  of  their  pictures,  as 
has  been  sometimes  done,  and  infer  a  certain  and 
general  doctrine  from  what  was  sometimes  only  an 
individual  fancy,  would  be  to  risk  self-deception. 

With  these  reserves,  there  are  a  certain  number  of 
observations  which  may  be  risked  without  fear,  being 
based  upon  too  many  proofs  to  be  contradicted.  We 
shall,  for  example,  remark  that,  at  least  in  the  earlier 
times,  death  does  not  seem  to  inspire  the  Etruscan 
artists  with  very  sad  thoughts.  Mournful  subjects 
which  seem  in  place  on  the  walls  of  a  tomb  are  very 
rare  at  Corneto.  In  the  Tomba  del  Morto  we  are  shown 
an  old  man  stretched  on  a  magnificent  bed.      He  has 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.        75 

just  died.  Before  him  a  young  woman  with  disshevelled 
hair,  probably  his  daughter,  seems  to  be  fastening  or 
pulling  down  over  her  face  the  cap  which  covers  her 
head.  At  the  ends  of  the  bed  two  men  raise  their 
hands  in  an  attitude  of  the  most  poignant  sorrow.  This 
scene  is  like  the  one  painted  in  the  Tomba  del  Morente, 
where  a  whole  family  is  seen  plunged  in  grief  near  a 
dying  man.  But  these,  I  repeat,  are  exceptions.  The 
artist,  in  general,  has  been  lavish  in  cheerful  pictures. 
One  would  think  his  desire  had  been  only  to  paint,  in 
this  abode  of  death,  that  which  gives  life  a  value. 
Above  all,  banquets  are  frequently  represented,  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  tomb  which  does  not  contain  one. 
The  guests  recline  on  sumptuous  couches,  and  hold 
large  goblets  in  their  hands ;  their  women  are  placed 
beside  them ;  everything  breathes  joy ;  wreathes  of 
flowers  hang  from  the  roof,  the  tables  are  served,  and 
we  can  distinguish  the  forms  of  the  dishes  which  cover 
it,  and  count  their  number.  By  the  tables  stand  slaves 
bearing  amphorae,  and  ready  to  pour  out  wine  for  the 
guests,  while  by  their  side  musicians  play  the  double 
flute  or  the  cithern.  We  must  not  be  surprised  to  see 
musicians  figure  so  often  in  the  paintings  of  Corneto, 
for  music  held  a  great  place  in  the  life  of  the  Etruscans. 
Not  only  did  they  never  celebrate  a  religious  ceremony 
or  a  public  festival  without  it,  but  it  may  be  said  to 
have  accompanied  all  their  actions.  An  historian  cited 
by  Athenseus  declares  that  they  kneaded  their  bread 
and  floG^ed  their  slaves  to  the  sound  of  the  flute.  A 
love  of  music  naturally  brings  with  it  that  of  dancing, 
so  at  Corneto  there  are  dancers  in  abundance.  They 
are  usually  represented  in  violent  attitudes,  their  hair 


76  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

dishevelled  and  their  heads  thrown  back,  as  the  Greeks 
love  to  paint  the  Bacchantes.  We  also  very  frequently 
see  hunting  scenes.  In  these  gorges  of  the  Appenines 
the  chase  must  always  have  been  a  favourite  amuse- 
ment. The  hunter  is  on  foot  or  mounted.  He  pursues 
birds  with  the  sling,  and  attacks  the  boar  with  the  spear, 
while  his  servants  carry  upon  their  shoulders  the  beasts 
he  has  slain.  Another  subject  the  artists  of  the  country 
delight  to  represent  are  the  games,  and  especially  horse 
and  chariot  racing.  In  the  Tomba  delle  Bighe,  the 
charioteers,  clad  in  scarlet  tunics,  with  reins  in  hand 
and  bodies  inclined,  are  about  to  dispute  the  prize. 
The  riders  are  seated  on  one  horse  and  hold  another  by 
the  bridle,  doubtless  ready  to  spring  from  one  to  the 
other.  Athletes  and  pugilists  keep  the  crowd  amused 
during  the  intervals  of  the  races.  Meanwhile  the 
spectators  throng  into  a  kind  of  stand  very  like 
our  own.  We  see  them,  men  and  women,  dressed  in 
their  holiday  clothes,  and  intent  upon  the  show.  Some 
persons  who  could  not  find  any  other  place — slaves,  per- 
haps— have  crept  beneath  the  tribunes,  and  look  on  from 
there,  in  company  with  some  domestic  animals.  The 
scene  has  an  incredible  character  of  reality.  Sometimes 
it  is  actors,  pantomimists,  or  acrobats  who  are  charged 
to  amuse  the  public,  and  who  do  it  with  a  will,  making 
all  kinds  of  contortions,  climbing  one  upon  the  other, 
and  walking  upon  their  heads.  Their  costumes  are  at 
times  rather  strange.  One  of  them  wears  a  pointed 
cap  with  coloured  stripes,  and  a  little  tuft  of  red  wool 
at  the  end,  just  like  that  put  by  the  Italians  on  their 
Punchinellos.  So  the  tomb  where  it  was  found  is 
called  "  la  Tomba  del  Pulcinella." 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       77 

What  was  the  real  meaning  of  these  paintings  ?  Why 
does  the  artist  usually  prefer  them  to  others  ?  And 
what  can  there  be  in  them  particularly  suitable  to  a 
tomb  ?  It  is  often  said  in  explanation  that  they  repre- 
sent feasts  given  in  honour  of  the  dead,  and  at  first 
sight  this  solution  looks  very  probable.  We  know, 
indeed,  what  a  great  place  festivities  hold  in  the  funeral 
rites  of  Rome.  The  ninth  day  after  the  funeral  the 
family  meets  to  dine  round  about  the  tomb.  This 
repast  is  called  the  cena  novemdialis ;  it  is,  strictly 
speaking,  the  octave  of  the  dead.  A  year  afterwards,  and 
on  the  succeeding  anniversaries,  the  repast  is  renewed, 
and  reunites  the  relatives  and  all  who  still  remember 
the  friend  who  has  passed  away.  So  far-sighted  people 
who  wish  their  memory  to  be  commemorated  as  long 
as  possible  are  careful  to  leave  by  will  funds  to  cover 
the  expense  of  the  feast.  Christianity  found  these 
customs  so  enrooted  that  at  first  it  did  not  dare  to  de- 
stroy tliem,  and  it  was  usual  to  come  and  eat  and  drink 
at  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs  on  their  anniversaries  down 
to  tlie  time  of  St  Ambrose.  As  for  the  gains,  they 
were  not,  as  one  might  be  tempted  to  think,  a  simple 
gratification  of  vanity — a  manner,  like  any  other,  of 
glorifying  a  man  of  importance  who  had  died.  They  had 
a  religious  meaning  of  the  deepest  gravity.  A  Christian 
who  assists  at  a  sacrifice  for  the  dead  thinks  that  he  is 
working  by  his  prayers  to  ensure  them  eternal  bliss, 
which  is  certainly  to  render  them  a  great  service ;  but 
a  pagan  who  celebrated  games  in  honour  of  one  of  his 
relations,  actually  helped  him  to  become  a  god,  which  is 
a  very  great  deal  more.  Such  was  the  importance  of 
worship  in  those  old  religions  that  not  only  could  there 


78  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HOEACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

be  no  gods  without  worshippers,  but  the  worshipper  is 
even  suspected  of  contributing  to  the  divinity  of  him  he 
prays  toJ  Young  races  readily  believe  that  the  man 
who  dies  throws  off  the  conditions  of  humanity  and 
becomes  a  superior  being.  So  then  he  is  nearly  a  god 
{clii  manes),  and  his  divinity  is  completed,  and  the  same 
honours  are  rendered  to  him  that  are  assigned  to  the 
immortals.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  games 
having  this  importance,  it  has  been  sought  to  preserve 
their  memory,  and  that  their  image  has  been  painted  in 
the  tomb  of  him  who  was  honoured  by  them.  It  was  a 
way  of  affirming  his  apotheosis. 

In  our  days  a  new  explanation  has  been  imagined. 
These  feasts,  these  games,  we  are  told,  are  not,  as  it  has 
been  thought,  a  representation  of  honours  rendered 
to  the  deceased,  but  an  image  of  the  felicity  he  enjoys 
in  the  other  world.  The  scene  had  been  laid  on  earth  ; 
in  order  to  understand  it,  it  must  be  removed  to  the  sky. 
Among  us,  M.  Eavaisson  has  maintained  this  opinion 
with  great  force.  Apropos  of  a  bas-relief  recently  dis- 
covered at  Athens,  where  a  young  woman  is  seen  hold- 
ing out  her  hand  to  some  old  men,  he  bids  us  remark 
that  we  possess  many  such  representations,  and  that 
hitherto  antiquarians,  believing  they  discerned  an  air  of 
sadness  on  the  faces  of  the  personages,  have  supposed 
here  scenes  of  adieu  or  separation.  M.  Eavaisson 
remarks  that  in  the  monument  he  is  studying,  the  old 
men  and  the  young  woman,  far  from  parting,  are  walk- 
ing towards  each  other ;  and  since  Hermes,  the  god  con- 

1  This  is  what  Statius  seems  to  me  very  precisely  to  express  in  his 
Thebaid.  He  represents  a  nymph  who,  by  dint  of  adoring  an  oak, 
has  rendered  it  a  sort  of  divine  power  {7m7)icnquc  colendo  fecerat). 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       79 

ductor  of  souls,  figures  beside  the  woman,  as  if  taking 
her  to  her  relations,  he  thinks  that  the  place  where 
they  are  is  the  abode  of  happy  spirits.  Then  extending 
to  all  monuments  of  this  kind  the  explanation  he  has 
given  of  the  one  at  Athens,  he  proposes  to  call  them  in 
future,  not  "  scenes  of  adieu,"  but  "  scenes  of  re- 
union." 1  He  believes  them  to  be  a  fresh  affirmation  of 
the  belief  of  the  ancients  in  the  persistence  of  life,  a 
satisfaction  given  to  that  energetic  hope  which  refuses 
to  believe  in  eternal  separation.  He  seizes  the  occasion 
to  combat  the  doctrine  of  Lobeck,  who  holds  that  the 
Greeks,  satisfied  with  the  present  life,  long  remain 
strangers  to  all  serious  concern  respecting  a  life  to 
come,  and  that  they  only  began  to  grow  anxious  about 
it  when  political  agitation  came  to  trouble  the  serenity 
of  their  consciences  and  open  them  to  religious  terrors. 
To  archffiologists  of  this  school,  who  decline  to  see  in 
any  monument  allusions  to  what  follows  death,  M. 
Eavaisson  opposes  the  interpretation  which  he  has  just 
given  of  the  so-called  "scenes  of  adieu."  To  it  he 
adds  a  new  way  of  understanding  the  supposed  funeral 
repasts.  They  are  for  him  and  many  otliers-  an  expres- 
sion of  the  divine  condition  of  the  soul  when  it  has  left 

^  M.  Ravaisson's  note  was  published  in  the  Gazette  archeologique  of 
1875.  His  conclusions  can  evidently  not  apply  to  all  bas-reliefs  with- 
out exception,  and  there  are  some  where  it  is  very  difficult  to  see 
"  scenes  of  reunion."  Those  spoken  of  by  M.  Brunn  in  the  AnnaUs  clc 
correspondance  archeologique  (1859,  p.  325,  c^  seq.),  in  which,  beside  the 
two  spouses  who  press  each  other's  hands,  demons  await  death  in 
order  to  proceed  towards  an  open  door,  are  indeed  veritable  "  scenes  of 
adieu." 

-  This  opinion  has  been  especially  championed  in  Germany  by 
MM.  Ambrosch  and  Stephani. 


80  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HOKACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

the  body,  and  a  manner  of  showing  the  happiness  it 
will  enjoy  after  death.  So  he  w^ould  have  them  called 
"Elysian  banquets."  To  the  reasons  collected  by  M. 
Ravaisson  in  support  of  his  opinion,  Dr  Helbig  adds 
another,  which  is  not  without  importance.  He  has 
remarked  that  in  the  Tomba  del  Oreo,  to  be  noticed 
further  on,  the  artist  has  traced  round  the  scenes  where 
the  gods  appear  a  line  of  dark  blue,  quite  resembling 
the  nimbus  by  painters  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  dis- 
tinguish the  heads  of  the  saints  for  the  veneration  of 
the  faithful.  Well,  this  tomb,  like  almost  all  others 
contains  a  banqueting  scene,  and  this  banquet  is  sur- 
rounded by  the  same  nimbus,  from  which  it  may  be  con- 
cluded that  the  guests  are  also  inhabitants  of  heaven. 

Whatever  be  the  force  of  these  arguments,  I  fear 
that  those  who  visit  the  frescoes  at  Corneto  will 
retain  some  doubts.  They  have  a  character  so  frankly 
terrestrial ;  they  reproduce  with  so  much  truth  the 
actions  of  ordinary  life,  that  one  has  great  difhculty  to 
conceive  that  the  artist  has  thought  of  painting  gods 
and  transporting  into  Elysium.  In  the  Tomba  del  Veccbio 
an  old  man,  whose  white  beard  contrasts  strongly  with 
his  swarthy  hue,  reclines  near  a  young  woman, 
familiarly  holding  her  by  the  chin.  An  air  of  sensual 
satisfaction  is  spread  over  his  features,  and  the,  woman 
herself  acquiesces  w^illingly  enough  in  his  caresses. 
While  looking  at  them  it  costs  us  a  violent  effort  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  we  are  no  longer  upon  earth. 
For  the  hunts,  the  games,  and  the  dances,  the  difficulty 
is  still  greater.  It  would  doubtless  be  very  natural  to 
see  in  them  an  image  of  the  pleasures  in  which  the 
blessed  indulge  in  the  world  beyond  the  tomb.     "  Some 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  COENETO.       81 

of  them,"  says  Virgil,  "  exercise  their  limbs  in  the  games 
of  the  palestra,  and  wrestle  with  each  other  on  the 
yellow  sand ;  others  beat  the  ground  in  cadence.  The 
taste  they  had  in  life  for  chariots  and  horses  does  not 
quit  them  after  they  have  ceased  to  live."  ^  But  how- 
ever inclined  one  may  be  to  regard  these  frescoes  as 
the  picture  of  a  kind  of  pagan  paradise,  one  lights  at 
every  instant  upon  details  that  bring  one  back  to  earth 
again.  In  the  Tomba  del  Cacciatore,  one  of  the  per- 
sonages who  pursues  birds  with  a  sling  is  so  carried 
away  by  his  ardour  that  he  falls  from  a  high  rock 
into  the  sea.  That  is  an  accident  to  which  one 
would  think  immortals  could  not  be  exposed.  It  is  all 
very  well  to  say  that  in  those  remote  times  the  future 
life  was  thought  to  be  exactly  like  the  present  one  ;  it 
is  difficult  to  admit  that  the  dead  could  have  run  a  risk 
of  killing  themselves. 

Perhaps  it  is  more  simple  and  probable  to  suppose 
that  it  is  not  merely  a  question  either  of  Tartarus  or  of 
Elysium  here,  but  of  future  life  as  all  primitive  races 
picture  it  to  themselves.  It  is  known  that  this  second 
existence  appeared  to  them  to  be  a  dark  sequel  to  the 
first,  a  twilight  after  the  day.  Man  continues  to  live  in 
the  tomb,  but  with  lessened  wants,  and  passions  grown 
more  feeble.  In  order  that  he  may  not  perceive  too 
great  a  change,  they  build  his  sepulchre  on  the  model  of 
his  house.  There  are  tombs  at  Corneto  arranged  quite 
like  ordinary  habitations.  The  one  called  the  Tomba 
degli  Scudi  is  composed  of  four  rooms;  one  being  placed 

^  ^n.,  VI.  642.  I  may  add  that  those  personages  who  dance  or 
ride  seem  indeed  to  be  quite  alive,  and  that  the  artist  has  sometimes 
written  their  names  above  their  portraits. 

F 


82  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

in  the  middle,  like  the  atrium  of  the  Romans,  and  all 
the  others  opening  out  of  it.  In  this  house  great  care 
is  taken  to  place  all  the  objects  which  the  deceased 
liked  for  his  use  or  his  adornment — his  arms,  his  gems, 
the  carpets  and  the  vases  which  he  paid  so  dearly  for, 
in  order  that  he  may  find  them  if  he  needs  them.  It  is 
with  the  same  idea  that  his  "  eternal  abode  "  is  decorated 
with  the  scenes  he  loved  in  life.  It  is  hoped  that 
all  these  pictures  of  feasts,  games,  and  dances  of  which 
he  is  supposed  to  be  still  cognisant,  will  console  him  for 
his  long,  sad  solitude.  The  reality  charmed  him  when 
lie  was  alive ;  it  is  thought  the  picture  will  suffice  him 
now  that  he  is  nothing  more  than  a  shade.  Only  these 
paintings,  in  order  to  produce  their  effect,  must  be  faith- 
ful and  carefully  executed.  They  are  done  for  him 
alone,  since  the  tomb,  once  closed,  is  not  opened  again  to 
the  living  :  but  what  of  that  ?  They  shall  be  made  as 
beautiful,  as  exact  as  possible  for  him.  When  they 
meet  that  eye  which  we  believe  to  be  not  entirely 
sightless,  it  must  be  able  to  draw  illusion  and  life  from 
them.  Unless  I  am  mistaken,  this  is  how  it  became 
customary  to  paint  such  animated  and  joyous  scenes  in 
the  tombs.^ 

These  scenes,  precisely  because  they  are  so  faithful, 
have  the  advantage  of  taking  us  into  the  midst  of 
Etruscan  life.     We  see  them  as  they  were  five  or  six 

1  In  Greece  too,  in  spite  of  the  progress  of  ideas,  this  primitive  con- 
ception of  the  other  life  was  never  effaced.  When  at  Tanagra  and 
elsewhere  those  charming  statuettes  were  placed  in  the  tombs,  which 
have  come  out  of  them  again  after  so  many  centuries,  and  which 
amateurs  contend  for  with  such  fury,  it  was  doubtless  that  they  might 
keep  the  dead  company. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.  83 

centuries  before  our  era,  at  the  beginniDg  of  the  Eoman 
Eepublic.     We  divine  their  tastes,  their  habits,  their 
everyday  life,  and  their  favourite    occupations.     War 
was  evidently  not  among  the  latter ;  for  we  have  re- 
marked that  it  never  figures  among  the  tombs  at  Tar- 
quinii.     We  find  a  few  warriors,  it  is  true  ;  but  equipped 
with    such    brilliant    arms,    and   covered   with    such 
coquettish   ornaments,  that   they  are    evidently  more 
ready  for  show  than  for  battle.     But  if  war  is  absent 
from  these  pictures  where  the  artists  painted  what  the 
Etruscans  liked  to  see,  it  proves  that  the  Etruscans  had 
no  taste  for  war.     All  antiquity  reproached  them  for 
their  love  of  peace,  and  even  gentle  Virgil  himself  could 
not  help  falling  foul  of  them.     He  supposes  one  of  their 
chiefs,  whom  they  have  deserted  in  battle,  to  address 
them  in  these  cruel  words :  "  Of  what  use  to  you  are 
your  glaives,  and  what  do   you  do   with   those    darts 
which  you  hold  in  your  hands  ?     You  have  only  heart 
for  pleasure ;  you  are  only  brave  in  the  combats  of  the 
night.    Listen  !    The  crooked  flute  announces  the  feasts 
of   Bacchus.     To   sit   at   a   well-furnished    board,  and 
stretch  your  hands  towards  full  cups — these  are  your 
delights.     These  are  your  wonted  exploits."  ^     It  must 
be  owned  that  the  paintings  of  Corneto  show  these  re- 
proaches not  to  have  been  unfounded.     They  give  us 
the  idea  of  a  rich  society  anxious  to  enjoy  its  fortune. 
Good  living  and  the  arts  are  its  passion  ;  it  passes  life 
joyously  ;    its  manners  are  not  austere.     The  women 
sit  at  the  feast  with  the  men,  which  was  not  allowed 
at  Eome  until  very  late.     The  highest  personages  do 


'^'n.,Xl,  734. 


84  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORA.CE   AND   VIRGIL. 

not  scruple  to  take  part  in  the  dance  ;  they  even  wish  it 
to  be  known,  as  if  it  were  a  distinction,  and  in  the  frescoes 
in  which  they  figure  they  have  their  names  written 
above  their  heads.    These  are  portraits,  then,  that  we  are 
looking  at,  and  although  the  originals  no  longer  exist, 
we  see  very  well  what  they  must  have  been.     Men  and 
women  appear  to  us  in  their  wonted  attitudes,  with  the 
very  dresses  they  used  to  wear,  and  which  the  artist  has 
copied  minutely.     These  details  of  costume,  to  which 
we  are  at  first  tempted  to  pay  but  slight  attention, 
must  not  be  neglected,  and  Dr  Helbig's  labours  show 
the  profit  to  be  drawn  from  their  close  study.     What 
adds  to  their  importance  is  that  the  Komans  and  Etrus- 
cans of  this  period  must  have  dressed  much  in  the  same 
style.      We   know   that   the   Eomans   borrowed   from 
the  Etruscans  the  ornaments  of  their  magistrates  and 
the  insignia  of  their  priests.     It  is  very  probable  that 
private  people  also  imitated  their  attire.      They  had 
then   too   much   to   do   themselves    to    trouble   about 
such   grave   trifles ;   besides,   they   lacked  the   species 
of  ingenuity  and  inventiveness  of  mind  needed  for  the 
contriving  of  a  costume,  and  found  it  very  simple  to 
take  their  fashions  from  their  neighbours.     We  have  no 
monument  remaining  such  as  would  bring  the  Eomans 
of  the  first  century  before  our  eyes.     "  If,"  says  Professor 
Helbig,  "  we  would  animate  the  streets  of  the  great  city, 
and  see  them  as  they  were  on  holidays,  we  must  in 
thought  fill  them  with  the  men  and  women  portrayed 
in  the  old  tombs  of  Tarquinii.     The  women  walk  about 
in  that  high,  conical,  parti-coloured  cap  called  tutulus. 
A  broad  riband  fastens  it  towards  the  middle  of  the 
head,  while  another  fixes  it  on  the  forehead.     A  sort  of 


THt:  ETEtJSCAl^  T0Mt3S  AT  COENETd.  85 

veil,  red  or  brown  in  colour,  hangs  from  the  top  of  the 
tutulus  or  is  draped  upon  the  shoulder.  The  men  wear 
the  pilcus,  a  high  stiff'  cap,  something  like  that  of  the 
women."  ^  This  is  how  we  must  imagine  the  contem- 
poraries of  Camillus  to  have  dressed,  and  not  in  the  fancy 
costumes  given  to  them  by  our  painters  and  sculptors. 
These  fashions,  derived  by  the  Eomans  from  the  Etrus- 
cans, lasted  until  the  time  when  Greece  made  them  adopt 
hers,  and  it  may  be  said  that  the  women  never  quite 
gave  them  up.  When  they  left  off*  the  ungraceful  cap 
they  had  worn  for  so  many  centuries,  they  kept  the 
ribands  which  surrounded  it,  and  turned  it  into  an  orna- 
ment to  twine  in  their  hair.  These  fillets  and  the  Ions 
robe  descending  to  the  feet,  were  the  adornment  and  dis- 
tinction of  honest  women,  courtesans  being  forbidden  to 
wear  them.  Thus  Ovid,  who  desires  it  to  be  well  known 
that  he  is  only  addressing  light  women,  takes  care  to 
say:  "  Hence,  0  ye  elegant  bandlets,  badges  of  modesty! 
with  ye  have  I  nought  to  do  "  {Nil  mihi  cum  vitta  ! )  ^ 

Herr  Brunn,  the  learned  professor  of  Munich,  rightly 
observes  that,  among  the  Etruscan  monuments  remain- 

^  The  ^iZe«s  was  the  head-dress  of  freemen,  and  was  placed  on  the 
heads  of  slaves  when  they  are  enfranchised.  It  thus  became  for  the 
people  a  symbol  of  liberty.  On  the  coin  struck  by  Brutus  after  the 
death  of  Cffisar  is  found  a  pilcus  between  two  daggers  with  these 
words,  "  Eidus  Martice,"  which  recalls  the  date  of  the  Dictator's  assas- 
sination. During  the  French  Revolution,  the  cap  of  liberty  and  the 
Phrygian  cap,  which  are  not  quite  the  same  thing,  were  confounded. 
The  latter,  on  Phrygian  coins,  is  worn  by  Midas.  The  French  are  said 
to  have  adopted  it  because  it  was  worn  by  the  Marseillais  when  they 
entered  Paris  singing  the  hymn  oVEougct  de  I'Isle."  (See  Professor 
Helbig's  note  on  the  pileus  published  in  the  Sitzungsherichtc  of  the 
Bavarian  Academy  of  Sciences,  1880,  I.  4.) 

2  Ovid,  Eemed.  am.,d86. 


S6  frtE  COttNTRV  6f  ifoiiAct;  A?TD  ViRGlt. 

ing  to  us,  those  which  seem  the  oldest  do  not  contain 
any  representation  of  a  mythological  subject.    Not  only 
are  there  no  scenes  borrowed  from  the  Greek  legends, 
but  even  the  Etruscan  gods  themselves  are  absent  from 
them.     Only  the  dead  is  thought  of :  his  pleasures,  his 
honours,  the  feasts  and  dances  of  which  it  is  desired 
to  give  him  the  spectacle,  and  the  games  celebrated  at 
his  funeral.      The  legitimate  conclusion  seems  to  be 
that  the  Etruscans  were  then  less  superstitious  than 
they  became  later  on.    With  nations,  as  with  individuals, 
age  often  enfeebles  belief ;  but  it  rendered  the  Etruscans, 
on   the   contrary,  more  devout.     Greece   soon   offered 
them  all  her  fables,  and  they  were  accepted  with  re- 
markable eagerness.     There  is  at  Corneto  an  important 
tomb  which  enables  us  to  be  present,  as  it  were,  at  this 
invasion  of  Greek  mythology.     As  it  contains  a  paint- 
ing of  Tartarus,  it  has  been  called  the  Tomba  del  Oreo 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  it  was  not  all  decorated  by  the 
same  artist,  and  one  feels  different  epochs  and  different 
hands.     We  find    first,  near  the  entry,  one  of   those 
feasts   of   which   I   have   already   spoken,  and   which 
are    so   common   in   the    sepulchres    of    Etruria.      It 
is  treated  in  the  usual  manner  of  the  painters  of  the 
country.     The  personages  are  portraits  ;  the  scene  is 
stamped   with    a    grand    character    of    simple    truth. 
Suddenly  the  system  changes,  and  we  enter  upon  a 
cycle  of  new  subjects.     The  artists  take  to  represent- 
ing Grecian  legends,  and  interpret  them   by  processes 
familiar  to  Greek  art.     We  have  Pluto  seated  on  his 
throne,  and  Proserpine  standing  at  his  side.     The  atti- 
tude of  the  king  of  Hades  is  full  of  majesty.     He 
stretches  his  hand  towards  a  three-headed  warrior  in 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  COUNETO.       87 

front  of  him,  as  if  to  give  him  orders.  This  warrior, 
covered  with  the  armour  of  a  knight,  is  Geryon,  son  of 
the  Earth,  the  giant  who  revolted  against  Jupiter,  and 
who  became,  as  a  punishment  for  his  insolence,  one  of 
Pluto's  servants.  A  little  further  on,  a  venerable  old 
man,  his  head  covered  with  a  mantle,  leans  upon  a  stick. 
His  eyes  are  closed,  he  leans  forward  as  if  to  listen 
to  someone  who  is  questioning  him,  his  features  have 
an  air  of  melancholy.  We  do  not  need  to  read  the  in- 
scription by  which  he  is  designated  in  order  to  recognise 
in  him  Tiresias,  the  divine  blind  man.  Opposite  to  the 
old  man,  and  as  if  to  form  a  contrast  to  him,  Memnon — 
handsome  Memnon,  as  Homer  calls  him — in  an  elegant 
effeminate  attitude  and  clad  in  a  sumptuous  costume, 
personifies  the  heroes  of  Asia.  Between  Memnon  and 
Tiresias  rises  a  large  tree,  upon  whose  branches  climb 
a  crowd  of  strange  little  beings  resembling  men.  These 
are  probably  the  souls  of  the  vulgar  dead,  of  whom 
Yirgil  tells  us  that  they  crowd  on  the  shores  of  the 
Styx  more  numerous  than  the  flocks  of  birds  that 
assemble  to  flee  the  first  winter  colds,  or  than  the 
leaves  when  the  winds  of  autumn  sow  them  on  the 
roads.^  Behind  these  figures  were  doubtless  many  others 
representing  the  chief  inhabitants  of  hell;  but  now 
only  that  of  Theseus  is  clearly  distinguishable.  He 
gazes  sadly  upon  a  personage  whose  features  are  very 
much  obliterated,  and  who  must  be  his  friend  Pirithous. 
They  had  planned  together  to  carry  off  Proserpine,  and 
are  cruelly  expiating  their  crime  in  hell.  A  horrible- 
looking  demon  called  Tuchulcha  (the  artist  has  taken 

1  ^n.,  VI.  309. 


88  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

care  to  tell  us  his  name),  shakes  over  their  heads  a 
furious  serpent.  His  mouth,  or  rather  beak,  is  wide 
open,  as  if  uttering  a  frightful  yell.  Perhaps  he  is 
emitting  the  vengeful  cry  which  Virgil  makes  re-echo 
in  hell  around  Theseus  : 

"  Discite  justiciam  moniti  et  non  temnere  divos."  ^ 

In  the  midst  of  all  these  pictures  of  Tartarus  is  found, 
one  knows  not  why,  an  almost  comic  scene  borrowed 
from  the  Odyssey.  It  represents  Ulysses  blinding  the 
Cyclops.  It  is  a  much  less  careful  picture  than  the 
rest,  the  treatment  being  perfunctory.  The  Cyclops, 
in  particular,  with  his  great  ears  sticking  up  and  his 
gigantic  face,  quite  resembles  a  caricature.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  what  the  adventures  of  Ulysses 
and  Polyphemus  have  to  do  here,  or  what  reason  there 
could  have  been  to  represent  them  in  a  tomb. 

The  decoration  of  the  Tomba  del  Oreo  is,  then,  nearly 
all  Greek.  The  artist  who  painted  on  these  walls  Pluto 
and  Proserpine,  Tiresias  and  Theseus,  doubtless  imitated 
some  work  known  and  admired  among  the  Greeks,  as 
that  of  Polygnotus  adorned  the  famous  portico  of 
Delphi.  Yet  there  is  a  personage  in  the  fresco  of  Cor- 
neto  who  seems  to  belong  especially  to  Etruria.  It  is 
the  one  called  Charun.  He  appears  again  and  again, 
and  is  always  represented  with  a  sort  of  complacency. 
Charun  is  a  fiend  upon  whom  popular  imagination 
seems  to  have  accumulated  all  that  could  render  an 
inhabitant  of  hell  at  once  repulsive  and  formidable. 
His  flesh  is  green,  his  mouth  immense  and  furnished 
with  menacing  teeth,  and  his  nose  is  bent  like  a  vul- 

1  .-ii7i.,  VI.  620. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS   AT   CORNETO.  89 

ture's  beak ;  he  has  large  wings  on  his  back,  and  in  his 
hands  he  grasps  a  double  hammer.  Although  this 
figure  is  quite  foreign  to  Greek  art,  Dr  Helbig  bids  us 
remark  that  the  Etruscans  borrowed  it  from  Greece. 
The  name  Charun  shows  the  origin  of  the  personage. 
He  is  old  Charon,  the  ferryman  of  hell,  whom  Virgil 
represents  with  a  disordered  beard,  flaming  eyes,  a  dirty 
garment  cast  over  his  shoulder,  and  an  oar  in  his  hand, 
which  served  him  to  keep  off  the  crowd  of  the  dead.^ 
In  the  alteration  to  which  the  Etruscans  subject  him  in 
order  to  transform  him  into  the  tormentor  of  souls, 
they  have  still  imitated  Greece,  whom,  it  would  seem, 
they  were  unable  to  do  without.  When  Polygnotus 
wished  to  represent  Erynomos,  the  demon  of  putrefac- 
tion, it  occurred  to  him  to  give  him  a  dark  blue  colour 
like  that  of  the  flies  which  infest  meat.  But  with 
Greek  artists  these  are  but  the  fancies  of  a  moment. 
Their  caprice  satisfied,  they  soon  abandoned  them  in 
order  to  return  to  simplicity  and  nature.  In  painting 
hell,  they  have  as  much  as  possible  replaced  the  mon- 
sters by  allegories — Terror,  Grief,  Sleep,  etc. — which 
gives  them  an  opportunity  to  depict  noble  attitudes  and 
beautiful  forms.  The  Etruscans,  on  the  contrary,  have 
plunged  into  the  horrible,  and  their  imagination  has 
taken  pleasure  in  the  most  repulsive  spectacles.  It  is 
evident  that  this  community,  in  growing  old,  gave  itself 
up  to  the  terrors  of  the  other  life.  It  takes  pleasure  in 
peopling  that  other  world  with  monsters,  and  makes  it 
a  place  of  dread.  It  invents  all  kinds  of  tortures  for 
the  dead,  and  supposes  that  in  becoming  unhappy  they 

1  u-En.,  VI.  299. 


90  THE  COUNTRY  OF  tTOKACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

become  malelicent  and  cruel.  Formerly  they  pleased 
them  with  joyous  festivals,  now  they  require  executions ; 
they  wish  their  tombs  to  be  sprinkled  with  blood,  and 
Etruria,  to  satisfy  them,  becomes  more  prodigal  in 
gladiatorial  combats.  Hunting  scenes  or  dances  are  no 
longer  represented  on  the  walls  of  their  tombs,  but  are  re- 
placed by  scenes  of  murder.  A  tomb  discovered  at  Vulei 
by  Alexandre  Francois  is  adorned  with  excellent  paint- 
ings, comparable  in  execution  with  the  finest  remaining 
to  us  from  antiquity.  The  subject  was  drawn  from  the 
lliacly  but  by  a  strange  and  lugubrious  caprice  the  artist 
has  seen  fit  to  choose  from  the  Homeric  poem  that  scene 
which  shocks  us  the  most — that  where  Achilles,  having 
taken  twelve  noble  and  brave  Trojans  in  the  Eiver 
Xanthe,  brings  them  "  like  young  fawns  trembling  with 
fear,"  and  with  his  own  hand  immolates  them  at  the 
tomb  of  his  friend  Petroclus.  Homer  seems  only  to 
speak  with  repugnance  of  this  action  of  his  hero,  and 
condemns  him  in  relating  it.  "Achilles,"  he  tells  us, 
"was  shaken  by  sombre  and  cruel  thoughts."  How 
happens  it  that  several  centuries  after,  in  the  full  bloom 
of  civilization,  a  painter  has  chosen  to  reproduce  pre- 
cisely what  the  simple  poet  of  a  barbarous  age  would 
have  palliated  ?  He  even  seems  to  have  found  the 
subject  not  repulsive  enough  for  him,  for  he  has  felt  it 
necessary  to  add  to  it  the  hideous  and  bestial  figure  of 
Charun.  The  demon  stands  beside  Achilles,  aiid  seems 
to  incite  him  to  accomplish  the  bloody  immolation. 
This  sinister  personage  evidently  troubled  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  Etruscans.  They  were  indeed  so  terrified 
at  it  themselves  that  they  believed  other  people  would 
be  afraid  of  it  likewise.     Titus  Livius  relates  that  in 


THE   ETRUSCAN   T0M1?S  AT  CORNETO.  §1 

their  fights  with  the  Eomans  in  defence  of  their  inde- 
pendence, their  priests  flung  themselves  upon  the  enemy 
"  with  blazing  torches,  with  serpents  in  their  hands,  and 
aspects  of  fury,"  ^ — that  is  to  say,  imitating  as  far  as 
possible  their  Charun.  Is  it  not  curious  that  this 
country,  which  four  or  five  centuries  before  Christ  con- 
cerned itself  so  much  with  the  other  life  and  made  such 
horrible  pictures  of  hell  and  its  inhabitants,  should  be 
the  one  where,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  poem  of  Dante 
and  the  frescoes  of  Orcagna  were  produced  ?  In  every 
epoch  the  Devil  filled  it  with  the  same  terrors. 

III. 

THE  PAINTINGS  IN  THE  TOMBS  THE  ONLY  MEANS  WE  HAVE 
OF  BECOMING  ACQUAINTED  WITH  ETRUSCAN  CIVILIZA- 
TION— ANCIENT  TOMBS — THEY  DO  NOT  DIFFER  FROM 
THOSE  OF  OTHER  ITALIAN  RACES — THE  DATE  AT  WHICH 
WE  FIND  AMBER,  AND  WHY  WE  CEASE  TO  FIND  IT  A 
LITTLE  LATER —  VAST  DI  BUCCHERO  NERO  —  IN- 
FLUENCE OF  THE  CARTHAGINIANS — AT  AVHAT  MOMENT 
IT  MUST  HAVE  BEGUN — HAVE  WE  A  RIGHT  TO  INFER 
FROM  THE  PRESENCE  OF  PHCENICIAN  OBJECTS  IN  THE 
TOMBS  OF  ETRURIA  THE  EASTERN  ORIGIN  OF  THE 
ETRUSCANS  ? — THE  INFLUENCE  OF  GREECE — AT  WHAT 
EPOCH  W^AS  IT  EXERCISED  ? — CAN  IT  BE  SAID  THAT 
ETRUSCAN  ART  NEVER  POSSESSED  ORIGINALITY  ? — 
PAINTINGS  AT  CCERE  —  DECADENCE  AND  END  OF 
ETRUSCAN  ART. 

What  gives  a  peculiar  value  to  these  tombs  and  their 
paintings,  and  explains  the  interest  taken  in  their  study, 
is  the  circumstance  that  they  alone  at  the  present  day  can 

1  VII.  17. 


92  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HOHACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

afford  us  some  light  respecting  ancient  Etruria.  We 
could  do  without  them  more  easily,  and  should  have  a 
more  direct  and  certain  means  of  acquainting  ourselves 
with  the  Etruscans,  if  we  knew  their  language ;  but  this 
has  hitherto  remained  a  riddle.  Science  has  in  our 
days  tackled  problems  apparently  more  difficult,  and 
solved  them.  She  reads  the  inscriptions  graven  on  the 
monuments  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  and  she  has  found 
again  the  language  of  the  Persians,  and  restored  their 
sacred  books.  The  Etruscan  tongue  did  not  seem  to 
be  more  unyielding.  It  was  spoken  or  understood  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Eoman  Empire.  Many  of  their 
inscriptions  remain  to  us,  whose  characters  are  easy  to 
read  ;  and  as  they  are  all  epitaphs,  their  meaning  may  be 
approximatively  guessed.  So  it  cannot  be  said  that  no 
one  understands  them.  On  the  contrary,  everybody 
flatters  himself  that  he  can  explain  them ;  but  each 
explains  them  in  a  different  manner,  which  is  worse 
than  not  understanding.  In  reality,  when  we  would 
analyse  scientificall}^,  distinguish  the  verb  from  the 
noun,  and  seek  the  exact  sense  of  the  words,  everything 
escapes  us.  After  a  century  of  efforts  we  are  no  further 
advanced  than  Lanzi,  when  in  1789  he  published  his 
work  entitled  Saggio  cli  lingua  Etmsca.  It  was  im- 
possible not  to  nourish  some  hopes  when  fifteen  years 
ago  it  was  known  that  a  distinguished  savant,  W. 
Corssen,  known  for  his  fine  works  on  the  old  Latin 
tongue,  was  about  to  apply  the  sagacity  of  his  mind 
and  the  certainty  of  his  method  to  the  interpretation  of 
Etruscan.  But  Corssen  was  not  more  fortunate  than 
others.  He  died,  one  may  say,  in  harness,  and  his  book, 
which  was  published  after  his  death,  has  only  added  a 


THE   ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.  93 

few  hypotheses  more  to  those  already  ventured.  How- 
ever mortifying  the  avowal,  it  must  be  owned  that 
Science  has  this  time  been  beaten.  We  must  therefore 
resign  ourselves  to  ignorance,  and  wait  until  some  new 
discovery  allows  our  philologists  to  try  their  fortune 
under  better  conditions. 

Since   the    inscriptions   remain   undecipherable,   we 
have  no  other  means  of  entering  this  unknown  world 
than  by  the  study  of  the  only  monuments  it  has  left  us 
— that  is  to   say,  the   tombs,  with   the  articles  that 
furnish  and  the  frescoes  which  decorate  them.     But 
the  tombs  can  only  be  of  any  use  to  us  if  we  manage  to 
fix  their  age.      Until  we  have   established  a  kind  of 
chronology  between  them,  and  distinguished  the  ancient 
from  the  more  recent  ones,  we  can  deduce  no  conclu- 
sions as  to  the  history  of  development  and  progress  of 
the  race  who  built  them.     Unfortunately  this  work  is 
not  only  indispensable,  but   also  very  delicate.     The 
monuments   of    Etruria   having    been   almost    always 
imitated  from  foreign  models,  it  is  by  comparing  them 
with  those  of  Egypt,  Assyria,  and  Greece  that  we  may 
hope  to  find  out  to  what  epoch  and  to  what  school  they 
belong.      Those  who   undertake  to   make  these  com- 
parisons must  therefore  bear  in  mind  and  before  their 
eyes  all  the  works  of  antiquity.     Add  that  the  relation 
between  the  original  and  the  copy  is  usually  very  diffi- 
cult to  seize.   It  is  often  a  detail  insignificant  in  appear- 
ance— the  arrangement  of  a  dress,  the  ornamentation  of 
a  piece  of  furniture,  a  feature,  a  line  in  the  face  or  the 
costume,  which  causes  the  imitation  to  be  guessed  and 
the   original   to   be   found    again.      The   undertaking 
was  very  difficult;  it  required  very  sagacious  critical 


94      THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

power  and  an  infinity  of  knowledge.     I  think,  however, 
that  it  may  be  said  to  have  succeeded  admirably. 

It  is  true  that  among  these  tombs  the  most  ancient 
are  easy  to  distinguish.  Here  antiquity  betrays  itself 
by  certain  signs,  and  error  is  not  possible.  Of  late  years 
the  excavations  at  Corneto  have  brought  to  light  a  great 
number  which  go  back  to  a  very  distant  epoch.  They 
are  all  composed  of  a  round  hole  a  metre  and  a  half 
broad  and  from  two  to  three  metres  deep.  At  the 
bottom  of  this  kind  of  well  was  placed  the  urn  con- 
taining the  ashes  of  the  deceased.  In  ordinary  sepulchres 
it  rests  directly  on  the  earth,  but  it  has  sometimes  been 
enclosed  in  a  kind  of  round  or  square  recipient,  for  its 
better  protection.^  Around  the  funeral  urn,  the  piety 
of  the  survivors  has  placed  divers  objects  which  must 
have  then  been  precious.  There  are  necklaces,  brace- 
lets, bronze  fibul£e ;  and  there  are  also  vases  of  a  grey 
or  blackish  colour,  made  of  a  somewhat  impure  clay, 
and  formed  by  hand.  Some  of  these  vases  are  without 
any  ornament  whatever,  while  others  have  lines  in  the 
form  of  circles  or  squares,  traced  upon  the  fresh  clay 
with  a  pointed  instrument.  This  is  what  is  called,  in 
the  language  of  archaeologists,  the  geometrical  decora- 
tion. Almost  all  important  museums  contain  these 
primitive  vases ;  and  although  they  are  not  very  beauti- 
ful, I  must  own  that  I  cannot  look  upon  them  without 
a  certain  emotion.  This,  then,  is  how  the  taste  for  art 
first  manifested  itself  in  man.     These  clumsily  traced 

^  In  the  Museo  Civico  just  established  at  Bologna,  under  the  in- 
telligent direction  of  M.  Gozzadini,  the  happy  plan  has  been  followed 
of  placing  some  of  these  tombs  with  all  the  objects  they  contained.  It 
is  a  very  curious  and  ragst  instructive  exhibition. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.  95 

lines  prove  that  to  provide  for  his  nourishment  and  his 
safety  no  longer  sufficed  him ;  tliat  he  was  sensible  of  a 
want  to  beautify  the  utensils  which  served  his  needs ; 
that  beyond  the  necessary  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  some- 
thing else,  and  began  to  feel  the  value  of  the  useless. 
It  is  a  new  instinct  revealing  itself  in  him,  and  which 
will  not  cease  to  grow  and  become  more  perfect.  In 
these  rough  designs  lay  ingermed  all  the  progress  of 
the  future.  If,  after  having  glanced  at  these  humble 
beginnings,  we  can  connect  them  with  the  marvellous 
paintings  of  the  white  lecythes  of  Athens,  we  -shall 
embrace  at  a  glance  the  way  which  human  industry 
travelled  in  a  few  centuries. 

The  study  of  these  ancient  sepulchres  suggests  some 
important  reflections.  First  of  all,  it  must  be  remarked 
that  neither  iron  nor  gold  is  found.  This  is  a  proof 
that  they  belong  to  a  time  when  these  metals  were 
unknown,  or  at  least  very  rare,  and  they  probably  go 
back  to  the  epoch  when  the  Age  of  Bronze  finishes  and 
the  Age  of  Iron  begins.  In  what  are  called  the  terremare 
of  Northern  Italy,  some  remains  of  villages  built  on 
piles  in  the  first  times  of  the  Age  of  Bronze  have  been 
discovered.  Among  all  sorts  of  detritus,  fracjments  of 
pottery  remained,  which  were  carefully  collected.  It 
has  been  found  that  the  vases  discovered  at  Corneto 
are  only  an  improvement  on  those  met  with  in  the 
terremare  of  Emilia.  Here,  then,  thanks  to  them,  is  a 
gap  filled  up.  We  now  possess  the  whole  series  of  the 
generations  who  have  inhabited  Italy,  and  we  see  the 
march  of  progress  uninterruptedly,  from  the  most  utter 
barbarism  down  to  the  most  complete  civilization. 
]Let  us  add  that  the  use  of  these  vases  was  not  peguliar 


96  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

to  Corneto ;  they  have  been  found  at  Bologna  (the 
ancient  Felsina),  at  Cervetri  (Ccere),  at  Palo  (Alsium),  at 
Orvieto  (Vulsinii) — in  short,  all  over  Etruria.  There 
is  nothing  in  this  to  excite  our  surprise,  for  it  is  natural 
enough  that  cities  of  the  same  race  should  possess  the 
same  industry.  What  is  really  astonishing  is  that 
similar  vases  exist  among  Italian  races  of  a  different 
origin  from  that  of  the  Etruscans.  Of  late  years  the 
taste  for  archaeological  studies  has  greatly  spread  in 
Italy,  and  every  city  having  been  seized  with  an  ardent 
desire  to  know  its  past,  excavations  have  been  carried 
on  methodically  from  one  end  of  the  peninsula  to 
the  other.  We  may  say  that  nearly  everywhere, 
when  the  deep  stratum  containing  the  most  ancient 
tombs  has  been  penetrated,  the  soil  has  rendered  the 
same  kind  of  remains.  What  has  been  discovered  at 
Corneto  has  also  been  found  in  the  old  cemeteries  of 
Campania,  of  Picenum,  of  the  Sabina,  of  Latium,^  and  of 
Eome,  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  Esquiline  and  the  Viminal. 
What  must  we  conclude  from  this  ?  That  the  races  who 
then  shared  Italy  were  less  separated  from  each  other, 
and  less  unlike  than  we  are  tempted  to  believe.  Their 
frontiers  were  not  rigorously  closed,  and  merchants 
passed  through  bearing  the  utensils  necessary  to  life, 
and  the  ornaments  which  adorn  it.  There  were  then, 
even  in  this  primitive  and  savage  epoch,  some  elements 
of  commerce — that  is  to  say,  some  elements  of  civiliza- 
tion.    The  chief  difference  between  these  peoples  is  the 

^  The  custom  of  giving  funeral  urns  the  form  of  little  cabins  was 
thought  to  be  peculiar  to  Latium  ;  and  until  lately  urns  of  this  kind 
had  only  been  found  in  the  territory  of  Alba.  Some  have,  however, 
just  been  found  at  Corneto  exactly  similar  to  those  of  Latium, 


THE  ETKUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       97 

greater  or  less  rapidity  with  which  these  germs  developed 
among  them.  There  are  some  for  whom  this  first  period 
lasted  longer,  while  others  passed  through  all  the  stages 
more  rapidly.  One  is  tempted  to  believe  that  directly 
Italy  was  conquered  by  the  Eomans  it  became  quite 
Roman,  and  that  being  reduced  by  the  same  domina- 
tion, all  its  peoples  took  to  living  the  same  life.  This 
is  a  delusion  that  must  be  got  rid  of.  There  are  some 
whose  position  and  whose  character  long  defended  them 
against  the  influence  of  the  Imperial  city.  We  must 
picture  to  ourselves  that  in  this  large  country,  which 
now  seems  to  us  so  enlightened  and  so  prosperous,  there 
still  remained  islets  of  barbarity,  as  it  were,  in  the 
midst  of  the  general  culture.  History  cannot  teach  us 
this,  for  it  does  not  descend  to  such  details,  but  Archaeo- 
logy reveals  it.  It  puts  this  persistence  of  ancient 
customs,  this  struggle  of  the  local  mind,  obstinately 
resisting  the  language  and  usages  of  Rome,  vividly 
before  our  eyes.  In  some  recent  excavations  at  Este 
(the  ancient  Ateste)^  tombs  were  discovered  containing 
vases  of  rather  rough  make,  and  inscriptions  in  the  old 
dialect  of  the  country.  One  would  think  they  dated  two 
or  three  centuries  before  our  era,  had  not  a  medal  of 
Augustus  been  found  in  one  of  them.  It  is  clear  that 
these  countries  had  not  quite  submitted  to  Roman 
influence  at  the  end  of  the  Republic.  It  was  the  Empire 
which  united  in  the  same  civilization  first  Italy,  and 
then  all  the  world. 

Etruria  had  progressed  much  more  rapidly.  Above 
all,  Tarquinii,  near  the  ocean,  and  seeming  from  her 
mountain  height  to  call  the  stranger  to  her,  was  early 
visited  by  bold  merchants  who  brought  her  the  products 


98  THE   COUNTKY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

of  their  industry.  So  her  progress  was  very  rapid.  A 
curious  tomh,  discovered  not  long  since,  enables  this  to 
be  verified.  In  one  of. those  cylindrical  holes  of  which 
I  have  just  spoken,  above  the  cinerary  urn  at  the 
bottom,  was  found  a  stone  sarcophagus,  containing  the 
remains  of  a  little  girl  whose  body  was  not  burnt ;  and 
with  the  poor  child  they  buried  all  her  jewellery.  This 
chiefly  consists  of  rings  and  necklaces  of  bronze,  only 
differing  from  those  of  the  preceding  epoch  by  their 
more  skilful  workmanship.  But  there  are  also  some 
gold  ornaments,  and  some  pieces  of  amber.  This  tomb, 
placed  so  close  to  the  other,  and  doubtless  belonging  to 
nearly  the  same  epoch,  marks  a  first  step  in  that  career 
of  luxury  and  elegance  in  which  Etruria  was  to  stop  no 
more. 

I  would  it  were  possible,  a  ]^ro])os  of  the  amber 
ornaments  in  this  tomb  and  in  many  others  of  the 
same  period,  to  analyse  in  detail  a  memoir  of  Dr 
Helbig  touching  the  employment  of  this  precious 
substance  in  ancient  times.  It  is  an  interesting 
chapter  of  this  history  of  ancient  commerce,  which  also 
has  a  bearing  on  that  of  Greek  art.  The  few  words  I 
may  say  on  this  work  will  show  its  importance. 
Dr  Helbig  begins  by  confirming  the  particulars  which 
the  ancients  give  us  touching  the  origin  *  of  this 
amber.  It  travelled  by  land,  passing  through  the 
whole  of  Germany,  tribe  by  tribe.  The  Ehone  took  it 
to  the  great  entrepot  at  Marseilles,  whence  it  was 
distributed  among  the  Hellenic  nations,  and  it  entered 
Italy  by  Pannonia  and  Venetia.  The  banks  of  the  Po 
seem  to  have  always  been  the  centre  of  this  commerce 
whence   it   penetrated    among   the   peoples    of    Italy. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.       99 

Amber  is  not  found  in  tlie  tombs  reaching  back  to  the 
Age  of  Bronze,  but  a  little  later  it  abounds.  Coquetry 
and  superstition  united  to  augment  its  value.  Orna- 
ments were  made  of  it  to  set  off  the  beauty  of  women, 
and  amulets  to  preserve  them  from  throat  diseases  and 
the  effects  of  the  evil  eye.  What  is  most  curious  is  that 
it  did  not  long  hold  its  own.  In  many  parts,  and  espe- 
cially among  the  richer  and  more  civilised  people,  amber 
suddenly  passed  out  of  fashion.  After  having  been 
found  in  abundance  among  tombs  of  a  certain  antiquity, 
it  is  no  longer  seen  in  more  recent  ones — that  is  to  say, 
at  the  very  moment  when,  international  relations 
becoming  more  frequent,  it  was  easier  and  less  costly  to 
preserve.  It  is  a  strange  fact,  of  which  Dr  Helbig 
has  been  the  first  to  give  us  the  reason.  According  to 
him,  all  is  explained  by  the  ascendency  acquired  by 
Greece  over  the  Italians.  Greece  never  cared  to 
execute  her  masterpieces  in  amber,  and  it  is  easy  to 
understand  why.  "  It  is  a  fundamental  principle 
of  Art,"  Dr  Helbig  tells  us,  "  to  subordinate  the 
material  to  the  adequate  expression  of  the  idea."  In 
order  that  it  may  entirely  obey  the  will  of  the  artist,  it 
must  have  no  exigencies  of  its  own.  Well,  amber  only 
produces  its  full  effect  under  certain  conditions,  and  if 
certain  properties  are  respected  which  are  peculiar  to 
it.  It  does  not  then  lend  itself  with  docility  to  all 
that  one  would  fain  do  with  it.  It  has  this  disadvan- 
tage :  its  transparency  and  the  brilliancy  of  its  surface 
mar  the  clear  perception  of  forms.  This  is  what  made 
the  Greeks  averse  to  amber.  It  is  from  a  similar 
motive  that,  although  they  use  opaque  glass,  they  never 
employ  the  transparent  material.     They  know  that  the 


100  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

latter  does  not  admit  of  perfectly  clear  and  defined 
forms  being  given  to  objects,  and  that  when  they  are 
looked  at,  the  lines  of  the  reverse  mingling  with  those 
of  the  front  produce  a  confused  whole.  It  must,  how- 
ever, be  remarked  that  they  were  not  always  of  this 
way  of  thinking.  In  the  Homeric  age,  when  they  did 
not  know  these  refinements,  they  esteemed  it  much, 
and  used  it  in  their  jewellery.  One  of  the  suitors  of 
the  steadfast  Penelope  can  think  of  no  better  means  of 
seduction  than  to  offer  her  "  a  gold  necklace  with  beads 
of  amber,  which  is  like  the  sun."  They  ceased  to  prize 
it  directly  a  more  elevated  sentiment  of  art  awoke  among 
them.  They  communicated  their  repugnance  for  this 
rebellious  material  to  all  the  peoples  subject  to  their 
influence,  which  proves  to  what  a  degree  their  tastes 
dominated  those  who  learned  from  them,  and  what 
faithful  disciples  they  made  of  their  imitators.  In 
Etruria,  in  Latium,  in  Campania,  so  long  as  Greek  art 
flourishes,  amber  is  absent  from  the  tombs.  It  only 
becomes  fashionable  again  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Eoman  Empire.  Professor  Helbig  infers  that  at  this 
moment  classic  traditions  are  about  to  be  lost ;  and  his 
conclusion  is  legitimate.  Doubtless  people  prided 
themselves  then  on  a  passionate  love  of  Art,  and  the 
number  of  amateurs  who  paid  dearly  for  statues  and 
pictures  was  never  greater ;  but  their  taste  is  no  longer 
so  pure.  The  extraordinary  and  the  costly  are  more 
sought  after  than  the  beautiful.  Precious  materials  are 
loved  for  themselves,  because  of  the  price  they  cost, 
and  they  are  employed  in  works  for  which  they  are 
unsuited.  In  architecture,  for  example,  peperino  and 
travertine,  the  fine  stones  which  served  for  the  con- 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.      101 

struction  of  the  majestic  monuments  of  Eome,  are 
disdained  ;  white  marble  itself  seems  too  bare  and  cold  ; 
and  from  far-distant  countries  rare  stones  and  marbles 
are  sent  for,  porphyry  and  obsidian,  to  surprise  the 
eye  and  strike  the  imagination  by  the  richness  of  the 
materials.  That  amber  should  profit  by  this  change  in 
public  taste  is  easy  to  understand.  The  infatuation 
inspired  by  it  reached  its  climax  under  Nero.  It  being 
found  that  it  did  not  arrive  in  sufficiently  large 
quantities,  a  Eoman  knight  was  sent  expressly  across 
Germany,  as  far  as  the  North  Sea,  to  stimulate  the 
commerce  in  it.  It  was  made  into  necklaces,  rings, 
and  bracelets  for  the  toilet,  into  statuettes  to  adorn  the 
house,  and  in  the  heats  of  summer  amber  balls  were 
held  in  the  hand,  to  refresh  and  perfume  at  the  same 
time.  In  the  rough,  or  worked,  it  was  used  everywhere, 
and  the  Emperor  Heliogabalus  grieved  that  he  had  not 
enough  to  pave  the  streets  through  which  he  must  pass. 
Let  us  return  to  the  tombs  of  Etruria,  and  to 
the  attempt  which  has  been  made  to  classify  these 
according  to  their  age.  We  stopped  at  the  point 
when  amber  and  gold  made  their  first  appearance, 
and  when  the  brown  vases  with  geometrical  designs 
begin  to  assume  less  crude  forms.  The  follow- 
ing epoch  presents  a  more  sensible  progress.  It  is 
then  we  meet  for  the  first  time  those  beautiful  black 
vases  called  by  the  Italians  "  vasi  di  hucchero  new," 
first  quite  smooth  and  then  ornamented  with  reliefs. 
They  must  have  been  regarded  as  marvels  of  elegance 
among  people  who  had  but  just  become  acquainted 
with  the  precious  metals,  and  who  were  wont  to  content 
themselves  with  their  primitive  pottery.     Later,  when 


102  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

the  painted  vases  of  Greece  were  known,  they  passed 
out  of  fashion  and  fell  into  discredit.  We  see  that  it 
was  "  the  thing  "  among  the  fops  of  Rome  to  laugh  at 
"  this  old  black  crockery,"  and  that  Martial  was 
obliged  to  remind  these  scorners  that  a  powerful  king, 
Porsenna,  had  formerly  been  satisfied  with  it.^ 

The  tombs  in  which  these  vases  are  found  contain  much 
more  curious  objects,  which  must  for  a  moment  arrest 
our  attention.  These  are  scarehei  of  hard  stone,  jewels 
of  very  delicate  workmanship,  and  perfume  vases  orna- 
mented with  strange  figures.  Winged  sphinxes  are 
seen  ;  fantastic  beasts  ;  stiff  personages  in  little  tunics, 
like  those  covering  the  obelisks ;  thick-set,  bearded 
giants  holding  lions  by  the  paw,  as  in  the  bas-reliefs  of 
the  palaces  of  Nineveh.  The  origin  of  these  objects  is 
not  doubtful.  We  have  before  our  eyes  the  products  of 
an  Oriental  art,  and  we  recognise  at  once  in  their  jewels 
and  these  vases  importations  from  Assyria,  Egypt,  or 
some  neighbouring  nation.  How  is  it  that  they  come 
so  far,  to  be  buried  in  Italian  sepulchres  ?  Can  we  find 
out  who  undertook  to  bring  them,  by  what  road  they 
travelled,  and  to  what  date  this  first  invasion  of  the 
East  goes  back  ?  Grave  problems  these,  which  were 
long  discussed,  and  whose  solution  is  now  foreseen. 

First  of  all,  it  is  certain  that  the  Etruscans  did  not 
receive  them  direct  from  Egypt  or  Assyria.  The 
Egyptians,  whom  Professor  Helbig  styles  "  the  most 
hydrophobic  nation  of  the  ancient  world,"  did  not 
willingly  venture  on  these  long  voyages.  As  for 
Assyria,  its  natural   frontiers  were  at   some  distance 

^  XIV.  98.  The  Louvre  Museum  contains  a  great  number  of  these 
"  vasi  di  hucchero  nero." 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.      103 

from  the  Mediterranean,  which  it  only  touched  at 
moments  and  as  the  result  of  ephemeral  conquests. 
But  between  Assyria  and  Egypt  there  was  a  nation  who 
undertook  to  trade  for  its  neighbours,  viz.  the  Phoeni- 
cians. Uninventive  themselves,  they  excelled  in  making 
use  of  the  inventions  of  others.  Like  the  genuine 
traffickers  they  are,  they  have  not,  so  far  as  they  them- 
selves are  concerned,  any  care  for  originality ;  they 
simply  manufacture  at  home  and  send  abroad  goods 
that  are  sure  to  find  a  market.  As  those  from  Egypt 
and  Assyria  seem  to  please  foreigners,  they  imitate, 
sometimes  also  spoiling  them,  and  spread  them  through 
the  entire  world.  So  thus  they  came  into  all  the 
countries  where  we  find  them  through  this  inter- 
mediary. Greece  herself,  in  spite  of  the  superiority 
of  her  genius,  of  which  she  was  always  conscious,  and 
although  she  had  already  produced  great  poets,  was  first 
tributary  to  Oriental  art,  and  it  is  in  imitating  that 
she  learned  to  surpass  it.  Much  more  then  did  the 
Italians,  less  happily  gifted  by  nature  and  less  intrinsi- 
cally rich,  undergo  its  charm.  It  must  be  remarked 
that  the  Latins  welcomed  it  not  less  warmly  than  the 
Etruscans.  In  1876,  near  Palestrina,  the  ancient 
Preeneste,  a  veritable  treasure  was  found,  composed  of 
objects  formed  of  gold,  silver,  ivory,  amber,  bronze, 
glass,  or  iron,  and  containing  vases,  tripods,  jewellery, 
arms,  and  utensils  of  all  kinds ;  above  all,  cups,  of 
which  one  is  decorated  inside  with  different  subjects 
chiselled  in  relief.  This  is  assuredly  one  of  the  most 
curious  pieces  of  Oriental  goldsmiths'  work  we  possess.^ 

^  This  cup  has  been  studied  by  M.  Clermont,  Gannau,  in  his  work 
entitled  Vlmageric  phenicienne. 


104  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

That  these  cups,  these  vases,  and  this  jewellery  was 
brought  into  Italy  by  the  Phoenicians  can  be  the  less 
doubted  from  the  fact  that  one  of  the  objects  found  at 
Palestrina  bears  a  Phoenician  inscription.  But  what 
Phoenicians  do  we  mean  ?  Under  that  name  two 
peoples  may  be  understood,  whose  destinies  were  very 
different,  although  their  origin  was  the  same.  One  of 
them  inhabited  the  borders  of  Asia ;  the  other,  an  off- 
spring of  the  first,  had  established  itself  in  Africa.  Did 
the  merchandise  we  find  again  in  Italy  come  from  Tyre 
or  from  Carthage  ?  Dr  Helbicj  answers  without 
hesitation  that  they  came  from  Carthage.  The  chief 
reason  he  has  for  his  belief  is  that  we  know  of  no 
relations  entertained  by  the  people  of  Tyre  with  the 
Italic  races,  whereas  it  is  certain  that  the  Carthaginians 
frequented  the  ports  of  the  peninsula,  and  brought 
thither  the  products  of  their  industry.  Supposing  the 
hypothesis  to  be  sure,  we  at  the  same  time  succeeded 
in  fixing  with  great  probability  the  epoch  when  this 
commerce  was  carried  on.  Dr  Helbig  thinks  him- 
self justified  in  affirming  that  it  does  not  go  back 
further  than  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  before  our 
era.  In  the  sixth  century  the  relations  between  the 
Carthaginians  and  the  Italians  became  closer.  They 
united  to  oppose  the  progress  of  the  Greeks,  who  were 
masters  of  Southern  Italy,  and  wished  to  push  their 
dominion  further.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  clever 
traders  like  the  Carthaginians  profited  by  this  circum- 
stance to  place  their  wares  favourably.  They  did  not 
like  war  for  its  own  sake,  cared  but  little  for  glory,  and 
only  sought  conquests  or  alliances  with  a  view  to 
creating  outlets  for  commerce.     So  we  find  that  at  the 


THE   ETRUSCAN   TOMBS   AT   CORNETO.  105 

end  of  the  sixth  century  they  signed  with  the  young 
Eoman  Eepublic  a  treaty  of  commerce,  a  translation 
of  which  Polybius  has  preserved  for  us.  Eome  was 
then  of  very  small  importance ;  but  when  one  is  astute, 
one  must  foresee  all,  and  Carthage  meant  to  prepare 
the  future  for  herself.  It  is  in  consequence  of  this 
treaty,  and  of  the  alliance  with  the  Etruscans,  that  the 
Carthaginian  ships,  certain  of  not  being  molested,  brought 
into  Italy  all  those  precious  objects  with  which  the  con- 
temporaries of  Brutus  and  Porsenna  adorned  themselves 
during  their  lives,  and  which,  after  death,  were  buried 
with  them.  The  sixth  century  before  our  era,  and  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth,  are  then  the  epoch  when  this 
commerce  was  the  most  active  ;  and  it  is,  above  all,  to 
this  moment  that  it  is  natural  to  attribute  those  great 
importations  of  Oriental  objects  found  in  the  tombs  of 
Italy .^  And  this  settles  a  question.  Everybody  knows 
how  many  discussions  have  been  raised,  and  how  many 
hypotheses  started,  with  regard  to  the  origin  of  the 
Etruscans.  The  presence  among  them  of  objects  of 
Oriental  make  has  often  been  invoked  in  these  discus- 
sions as  a  decisive  argument.     It  was  for  many  savants 


^  Fran9ois  Lenormant,  wliile  generally  accepting  Dr  Helbig's 
opinions,  subjects  them,  however,  to  a  restriction.  He  thinks  that 
some  of  these  apparently  Oriental  objects  were  brought  into  Italy,  not 
by  the  Carthaginians,  but  by  the  Greeks.  The  Greeks  also  imitated 
the  East,  and  at  this  moment  the  products  of  Ionian  industry  did 
not  much  differ  from  those  of  the  Asiatics.  Lenormant  brought 
home  from  Yulei  and  Cervetri  vases  whose  style  seemed  at  first  sight 
absolutely  Egyptian  or  Phoenician.  But  on  observing  the  paintings 
on  them  more  closely,  it  is  perceived  that  they  depict  purely  Greek 
fables.  According  to  him,  then,  even  in  this  primitive  commerce  we 
must  give  some  place  to  the  Greeks. 


106  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

a  manifest  proof  that  Herodotus  was  right  in  saying 
they  came  from  Lydia.  "  See,"  they  used  to  say,  "  how 
faithful  they  have  remained  to  the  art  of  their  country. 
In  leaving  Asia,  they  evidently  brought  the  taste  with 
them,  and  kept  it  in  their  new  fatherland."  This  seem- 
ingly victorious  argument  has  now  no  longer  any  force. 
We  know  at  what  moment  the  Etruscans  received 
among  them  the  products  of  the  East,  and  who  taught 
them  to  know  and  love  them.  They  had  then  already 
been  several  centuries  in  Italy,  and  had  had  plenty  of 
time  to  forget  their  origin.  So  the  favour  with  which 
they  received  the  merchandise  brought  them  by  the 
Carthaginians  is  not  accounted  for,  as  is  asserted,  by 
the  charm  of  memory,  but  by  the  attraction  of  novelty. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  think  they  had  piously  preserved 
Oriental  custom  from  the  day  when  they  quitted  their 
native  land.  I  have  just  shown  that  we  possess  monu- 
ments more  ancient,  and  nearer  the  period  when  they 
entered  Italy ;  and  these  monuments  contain  nothing 
recalling  the  East.  It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  influence 
of  Asia  upon  the  art  and  industry  of  the  Etruscans  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  problem  of  their  origin.  This, 
I  repeat,  is  a  settled  question.  We  still  remain  in 
ignorance  as  to  their  race  and  the  country  they  came 
from,^  but  the  ground  is  cleared  of  an  hypothesis,  which 
will  make  the  solution  of  the  problem  more  easy. 

We  are  coming  to  a  revolution  which  took  place  in 
Etruscan  art.     The  vessels  of  Carthage  must  have  met 

^  In  our  days  one  is  inclined  to  tliink  there  is  no  truth  in  the 
pretty  story  of  Herodotus,  and  that  the  Etruscans  probably  came  by 
way  of  the  Alps.  But  of  the  race  to  which  they  belonged  we  are  in 
absolute  ignorance. 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.      107 

in  the  ports  of  Etruria  those  of  the  Greeks,  and  the 
merchants  of  the  two  countries  probably  entered  into  a 
sharp  competition  with  each  other.  The  relations  of 
the  Etruscans  with  Greece  began  very  early,  and  of  this 
we  have  a  certain  proof.  Dr  Helbig  has  shown  by 
ingenious  deductions  that  they  must  have  become 
acquainted  with  writing  about  the  eighth  century  B.C., 
and  we  know  that  they  had  it  from  the  GreelvS.  The 
alphabet  they  used  is  that  of  the  Phoenicians,  but  in- 
creased by  the  letters  which  the  Greeks  had  added.  So 
that  before  the  seventh  century  B.C.  they  knew  Greece, 
entertained  relations  with  her,  and  had  already  been  to 
her  school.  If  her  influence  over  them  was  not  at  first 
sovereign,  it  is  because  she  herself  had  not  yet  found 
her  way,  and  was  still  content  to  imitate  Egypt  and 
Assyria.  But  she  was  not  made  to  remain  long  sub- 
servient to  the  foreigner.  Her  natural  originality 
ended  by  re-awaking,  and  she  brought  to  every  market 
the  products  of  a  freer,  younger,  more  living  art,  in 
which  the  West  recognised  her  genius.  Etruria  was 
seduced  before  the  other  Italian  nations,  and  from  that 
moment  she  ceased  to  copy  the  East,  and  imitated 
Greece. 

Greek  art  is  chiefly  represented  in  Etruria  by  sepul- 
chral frescoes ;  and  they  were  all  painted  under  her 
influence.  Those  of  Corneta  being  more  numerous,  and 
having  all  been  executed  in  the  same  place  and  under 
the  same  local  influences,  it  is  easier  to  compare  them 
with  each  other,  and  in  comparing  them  to  arrive  at  a 
classification.  This  work,  begun  by  Prof.  Brunn,  has  been 
pursued  with  still  greater  rigour  and  success  by  Dr 
Helbig.      His  judgment  is  determined   by  reasons  of 


108     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

many  kinds,  some  of  them  rather  belonging  to  the 
domain  of  taste,  while  others  are  derived  from  his 
erudition.  A  painting  bears  its  date  in  the  manner  of 
its  execution,  and  a  practised  critic,  on  looking  at  it, 
can  tell  the  period  of  art  it  belongs  to  and  the  school 
that  produced  it.  But  this  sort  of  intuition  is  not 
enough.  In  order  that  the  critic's  decision  may  be 
accepted  without  contest,  it  is  well  for  it  to  be  based 
upon  more  precise  proofs.  The  processes  used  by  the 
artist  in  the  details  of  his  work  may  furnish  them  to 
him.  We  see,  for  example,  that  Pliny  says  of 
Polygnotus :  Primus  mulieres  tralucida  veste  jpinxit ;  ^ 
so  that  as  often  as  we  see  a  picture  with  this  transparent 
clothing  which  allows  the  forms  to  be  guessed,  we  have 
a  right  to  suppose  it  posterior  to  Polygnotus.  Precious 
indications  may  sometimes  be  drawn  from  a  circum- 
stance which  at  first  seems  trivial.  Thus  in  the  Tomba 
del  Vasi  Depinti  the  artist  has  represented  the  interior  of 
an  Etruscan  house.  Vases  are  arranged  on  a  table  or  on 
the  floor.  Their  form  is  elegant,  and  they  bear  black 
figures  on  a  reddish  ground.  This  detail,  to  which  we 
do  not  at  first  pay  great  attention,  is  not  without  interest. 
We  know  pretty  nearly  about  what  century  this  kind 
of  decoration  came  into  fashion  for  painted  vases,  and 
when  it  was  replaced  by  red  figures  on  a  black  ground ; 
so  we  are  here  in  possession  of  an  approximate  date. 
With  the  help  of  these  indications,  and  of  many 
others  which  I  am  obliged  to  omit,  Dr  Helbig  has 
established  that  the  oldest  tombs  of  Corneto  are  not 
anterior  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.     This  is 

\Hist.  Nat.,XXXY.  9(35). 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.      109 

a  very  important  result  for  the  history  of  the  art  and 
civilization  of  Etruria. 

He  has  also  shown,  by  the  progress  remarked  among 
the  frescoes,  that  Greek  art  was  not  introduced  among 
the  Etruscans  suddenly ;  that  it  penetrated  little  by 
little,  insinuating  itself  more  and  more  every  day,  and 
becoming  more  and  more  dominant,  until  the  moment 
when  it  triumphed,  without  dispute  and  without  a  rival. 
The  history  of  these  various  phases  would  be  an 
interesting  study.  It  would  perhaps  show  that  after 
having  exalted  the  Etruscans  too  highly,  we  now  give 
them  a  worse  reputation  than  they  deserve.  Prof. 
Mommsen,  their  great  enemy,  compares  them  to  the 
Chinese,  who  are  incapable  of  finding  anything  for 
themselves,  and  will  only  allow  them  "  the  secondary 
genius  of  imitation,"  while  even  as  imitators  he  puts 
them  below  all  the  other  Italian  peoples  who  were 
inspired  by  Greek  art.  But  we  are  going  to  show  that 
there  was  an  epoch  when  they  were  not  quite  the  slaves 
of  their  teachers,  and  when  they  knew  how  to  put  a 
certain  originality  into  their  imitation.  We  possess  at 
Paris  paintings  which  show  us  what  the  Etruscans 
could  do  when  they  dared  to  trust  to  their  own  genius. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  rooms  in  the  old  Musee 
Napoleon  III,  at  the  Louvre,  is  that  in  which  some  of 
the  most  beautiful  antiquities  have  been  placed  that 
come  to  us  from  ancient  Coere.  The  public  lingers 
willingly  there,  to  look  at  a  large  sarcophagus  occupying 
the  middle  of  the  room,  and  on  which  two  personages, 
a  husband  and  his  wife,  lie  half  reclined.  Their  strange 
costumes,  their  animated  faces,  their  little  bright  eyes, 
attract  the  attention  of  all  who  pass.     This  itself  is  a 


110  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

very  curious  specimen  of  Etruscan  art ;  but  still  more 
curious  ones  are  to  be  seen  in  the  glass  cases.  Some 
terra-cotta  slabs  have  been  placed  there,  which  formed 
the  lining  of  ancient  tombs.  These  are  covered  with 
paintings  executed  after  the  manner  of  the  archaic 
school,  and  on  the  model  of  the  old  masters  of  Greece. 
The  gestures  of  the  personages  are  stiff,  the  forms  clumsy, 
the  extremities  of  the  hands  incredibly  elongated,  the 
drapery  regular  and  heavy.  When  sitting,  they  look 
like  wooden  figures  that  have  been  bent  in  order  to  put 
them  on  the  chairs ;  when  they  stand,  their  attitude  is 
contrary  to  all  static  laws,  and  one  can  see  that  they 
will  fall  if  they  begin  to  walk.  All  these  defects  do  not 
prevent  them  from  being  perfectly  lifelike,  and  such  is 
the  attraction  of  life,  that  we  look  at  them  with 
pleasure,  in  spite  of  the  imperfections  of  this  primitive 
painting.  One  of  these  scenes  struck  me  above  all.  It 
represents  twc  aged  men  seated  opposite  to  each  other 
on  those  seats  handed  down  by  the  Etruscans  to  the 
Eomans,  and  which  became  the  annuli  chairs.  One  of 
them,  who  seems  to  be  the  gravest  and  most  important, 
holds  a  kind  of  sceptre  in  his  hand.  He  is  speaking, 
and  the  other  listens.  The  latter,  listening  figure  leans 
his  chin  upon  his  hand  in  a  natural  attitude  of  medita- 
tion ;  a  profound  melancholy  is  impressed  upon  his 
features.  It  is  someone  in  affliction,  whom  a  friend  is 
consoling  for  a  cruel  loss  he  has  suffered.  Towards  the 
top  of  the  picture  a  little  winged  figure,  a  woman 
covered  with  a  long  red  robe  which  hides  her  feet,  flies 
in  space  towards  the  two  old  men.  She  represents  the 
soul  of  the  dead  coming  to  assist  at  the  conversation  of 
which  she  is  the  subject — a  touching  idea  certain  to  come 


THE   ETRU'SCAN   TOMBS   AT   CORNETO.  Ill 

to  this  people  so  occupied  with  the  future  life.  People 
so  convinced  that  existence  continues  beyond  the  tomb 
were  naturally  brought  to  believe  that  our  cherished 
dead  listen  every  time  we  speak  of  them. 

Certainly  everything  in  this  picture  is  not  original,  the 
painter  imitates  the  processes  of  a  foreign  art ;  but  one 
feels  that  he  is  their  master,  and  that  he  appropriates 
them  freely  to  his  thoughts.  The  sentiment  is  his,  and 
he  renders  it  as  he  feels  it.  When  looking  on  these 
beautiful  frescoes  of  Coere,  and  others  scattered  among 
the  Italian  museums,  it  is  impossible  not  to  own  that 
the  nation  which  in  those  remote  times  possessed 
artists  capable  of  thus  reproducing  life,  and  giving  to 
the  figures  they  drew  this  air  of  simple  reality,  were 
capable  of  going  further,  and  creating  a  national  art. 
It  seems  to  me  even  that  we  can  guess  from  these 
beginnings  what  would  have  been  the  dominant 
character  of  Etruscan  art,  could  it  have  developed  itself 
in  liberty.  It  would,  doubtless,  have  cared  but  little 
for  the  ideal ;  it  would  not  too  eagerly  have  sought  after 
dignity  and  grandeur.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  fres- 
coes of  the  tombs  the  artists  love  to  paint  scenes  of  real 
life — games,  hunts,  and  feasts — which  they  depict  as 
they  see  them,  without  any  attempt  to  ennoble  them  in 
execution  ;  that  their  personages  are  portraits,  and  that 
not  only  do  they  try  to  make  them  as  like  as  possible, 
but  they  endeavour  to  reproduce  the  least  details  of 
costume.  This  anxiety  to  copy  the  reality  exactly  is 
so  natural  to  the  Etruscan  artists  that  it  is  found 
among  the  sculptors  as  well  as  among  the  painters. 
On  visiting  the  room  where  the  sarcophagi  are  collected 
in  the  museum  at  Corneto,  one  experiences  a  strange 


112  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

impression.  The  dead  are  sometimes  represented 
stretched  full  length  upon  their  tombs  as  they  are 
on  the  pavements  of  our  cathedrals,  and  sometimes 
raised  upon  their  elbows.  The  artists  have  been 
careful  to  give  them  a  religious  attitude:  men  and 
women  hold  a  'patera  in  their  hands,  as  if  death  had 
surprised  them  while  they  were  engaged  in  making  a 
sacrifice.  But  in  spite  of  the  gravity  of  the  act  they 
were  accomplishing,  their  faces  are  frequently  vulgar. 
The  attire  and  the  lower  part  of  the  body  are  often 
treated  with  elegance.  The  sculptor  must  have  had 
books  of  models,  and  have  prepared  in  advance  and  at 
leisure  those  parts  of  his  work  which  did  not  change. 
The  face  is  that  of  the  dead.  The  artist  added  it  at  the 
last  moment,  and  reproduced  it  with  perfect  fidelity. 
When  he  has  old  men  or  women  to  represent,  he  does 
not  spare  us  any  of  the  deformities  inflicted  by  age 
upon  the  human  face.  He  shows  us  with  complacency 
the  furrows  of  the  brow,  the  projection  of  the  features, 
the  hanging  flesh,  the  flabby  breasts,  and  the  skinny 
necks.  This  realism,  sometimes  coarse,  at  times  power- 
ful, was  the  tendency  of  Etruscan  artists ;  and  this  is 
the  way  they  would  have  continued,  had  they  followed 
their  natural  instincts,  to  the  end. 

But  they  turned  aside  from  it  in  order  to  draw 
nearer  to  Greek  art.  So  long  as  Greece  had  only  sent 
them  the  works  of  her  first  masters,  full  of  inexperience 
and  gropings,  their  admiration  had  not  been  sufficiently 
strong  to  paralyse  all  originality.  But  when  the 
masterpieces  came,  the  seduction  was  so  strong  that 
they  quite  forgot  themselves.  In  the  presence  of  these 
marvels  they  were  completely  subdued  and  vanquished, 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  CORNETO.  113 

and  only  thought  of  reproducing   them.      Dr  Helbig 
makes  us   follow  the   ever  more   and  more   powerful 
influence  of  Greece  in  the  frescoes  of  Corneto.     There 
are  tombs — the  more  ancient  ones — where  national  art 
timidly  tries  to  resist,  and   where  the  characteristics 
of    the    two    schools    are    sometimes    found    clumsily 
mingled.      But   in   the   following,   Greece   rules   with 
undivided   sway.       Her   victory   is    revealed    by   the 
presence  of  scenes  and  personages  borrowed  from  the 
Homeric  poems,  by  the  employment  of  the  nude,  and 
by  the  idealistic  character  of  the  paintings.      In  the 
school  of  the  Greeks,  the  taste  of  the  Etruscan  artist 
becomes  more  refined  and  his  hand  more  skilful.     His 
defects  disappear  or  diminish,  he  produces  more  elegant 
works,  but  his  inspiration  is  no  longer  so  sincere.     He 
temporises  his  natural  qualities,  and  does  not  succeed 
in  equalling  those  of  his  masters.     Soon  decadence  is 
visible.     It  is  already  seen  at  Corneto,  in  the  Poly- 
phemus of  the  Tomba  del  Oreo.     The  defeat  of  Tarquinii 
and  its  submission  to  the  Romans  made  it  irreparable. 
There  happened  then  in  Italy  what  we  again  see  going 
on  before  our  eyes.     All  those  little  cities  which  had 
preserved    a    distinct   physiognomy   so   long   as   they 
remained  free  and   sovereign,  those  small  capitals   of 
small  states,  where  a  certain  activity  of  mind  reigned, 
which  cultivated  art  and  formed  independent  schools^ 
were  absorbed  in  the  great  Eoman  unit.     Life,  as  usual, 
was  borne  towards   the   centre.      The   municipalities, 
carried  away  in  the  general  movement,  with  their  eyes 
fixed  upon  Rome,  no  longer  had  any  character  of  their 
own,  and  the  little  originality  that  Etruscan  art  had 
left  finally  disappeared.  . 


114  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HOE  ACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

This  is  the  most  important  thing  we  learn  from  the 
latest  works  upon  the  Etruscans.  These  works,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  embrace  all  their  history.  Without 
leaving  the  hill  of  Corneto,  we  may  have  the  spectacle 
of  all  the  revolutions  that  this  mysterious  race  passed 
through  from  its  advent  into  Central  Italy  down  to  its 
defeat  by  the  Eomans.  Doubtless  all  is  not  completed. 
There  remain  in  this  history  conjectures  to  verify,  gaps 
to  fill  up,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  the  excavations, 
which  continue,  will  add  much  to  our  knowledge.  Yet  the 
great  lines  are  traced,  and  we  hold  the  sequence  of  the 
chief  facts.  We  have  even  succeeded  in  fixing  some 
rather  probable  facts  in  the  midst  of  this  dark  night. 
We  know  pretty  nearly  at  what  date  Etruria  began  to 
undergo  Phoenician  influence,  and  when  Greek  art  was 
revealed  to  her.  These  results  are  not,  perhaps,  so 
striking  and  unforeseen  as  certain  discoveries.  They 
were  attained  slowly  by  dint  of  minute  observations,  by 
the  efforts  of  assiduous  labour,  by  collecting  the  shreds 
of  vases,  by  scrutinising  old  texts,  and  by  amassing 
small  facts.  This  road  seems  long  to  the  impatient, 
and  pleases  not  the  makers  of  brilliant  generalisations. 
Of  the  erudite  sciences  it  is  the  usual  mode  of  pro- 
gression :  they  walk  by  small  steps,  but  they  advance 
always,  and  one  cannot  measure  the  road  they  have 
made  in  these  few  years  and  despise  them.  We  have 
suffered  many  disappointments  in  our  day,  and  we  have 
more  than  once  been  forced  to  abandon  hopes  whose 
realisation  seemed  certain.  Science  alone  has  kept  all 
her  promises.  It  is  needless  to  recall  here  all  the  light 
she  has  thrown  upon  the  past  since  the  beginning  of 
this  century  ;  the  study  I  have  just  made  shows  that  at 


THE  ETRUSCAN  TOMBS  AT  COHNETO.       115 

the  moment  of  its  conclusion  she  was  not  yet  exhausted. 
We  owe  her  great  gratitude,  not  only  for  the  honour  we 
shall  derive  from  her  discoveries  in  the  future,  but  for 
the  good  she  now  does  us.  She  has  afforded  curious 
minds,  captivated  by  the  quest  of  the  unknown,  the 
liveliest  joys  they  can  experience  ;  she  makes  them  for- 
get bitter  deceptions ;  she  raises,  she  sustains  them,  and 
despite  the  sadness  of  the  eve  and  the  cares  of  the 
morrow,  she  allows  them  now  and  then  to  say,  like  the 
Eomans  of  the  Empire  when  the  advent  of  a  good 
prince  made  a  break  in  the  stormy  sky,  "vivere  lubet." 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   COUNTRY   OF   THE  ^NEID. 

I  HAVE  just  read  the  jEneid  in  the  country  which 
inspired  it,  in  the  very  place  where  the  events  related 
in  it  passed ;  and  in  doing  so  I  experienced  the  most 
lively  pleasure.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that 
it  cannot  be  understood  without  taking  this  long 
journey,  and  that  the  sight  of  Lavinium  and  Laurentum 
is  fraught  with  revelations  as  to  the  merits  of  the  great 
poem ;  for  this  would  be  a  ridiculous  exaggeration. 
Virgil,  like  Homer,  belongs  to  the  school  of  poets  who 
put  the  man  first,  and  only  consider  Nature  in  its  con- 
nection with  him.  They  rarely  describe  her  for  her 
own  sake,  as  we  so  willingly  do  nowadays.  When  they 
offer  us  the  picture  of  a  conflagration  devouring  the 
harvest,  or  of  a  torrent  inundating  the  land,  they  are 
careful  to  place,  somewhere  on  a  neighbouring  height,  a 
husbandman  or  a  shepherd,  whose  heart  is  wrung  at 
the  sight  of  the  disaster : 

"  Stupet  inscius  alto 
Accijneno,  sonitmn  saxi  de  vertice  pastor." 

Virgil,  then,  is  not  one  of  those  who  indulge  in  needless 
descriptions ;  he  describes  places  as  little  as  possible. 
Only,  we  may  be  sure  that  what  he  says  is  always 
scrupulously  true.      The  ancient  poets  love  precision 


118  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

and  fidelity ;  they  do  not  draw  imaginary  landscapes, 
and  usually  only  show  us  those  they  actually  have 
before  their  eyes.  They  paint  them  with  one  stroke,  but 
that  stroke  is  always  true,  and  one  feels  great  pleasure, 
when  this  is  possible,  in  verifying  its  exactness. 

Be  assured  that  it  is  not  merely  an  inquisitive,  profit- 
less pleasure  :  the  study  of  the  great  writers  always  gains 
by  these  researches.  They  rejuvenate  and  refresh  our 
admiration  for  them,  which  is  at  times  not  unnecessary. 
The  greatest  peril  that  can  menace  them  is  only  to 
inspire  in  their  worshippers  an  enthusiasm  conventional 
and  made  to  order ;  and  that  they  may  escape  it,  it  is  as 
well  now  and  then  to  change  the  point  of  view  from 
which  we  regard  them.  All  that  stimulates  us  to  draw 
nearer  to  them,  all  that  puts  us  into  direct  communica- 
tion with  them,  re-animates  in  us  the  feeling  of  their 
true  beauties. 

And  such  is  the  profit  I  have  just  derived  from  this 
manner  of  studying  the  ^neid  in  its  home.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  in  reading  it  again  by  Mount  Eryx  or  the 
Tiber,  in  the  forest  of  Laurentum,  and  on  the  heights  of 
Lavinium,  the  tales  of  Virgil  became  more  living  to 
me,  that  I  understood  them  better,  and  that  they  struck 
me  more  forcibly.  Although  this  kind  of  impressions 
are  of  a  strictly  personal  character,  and  it  is  not  easy  to 
communicate  them  to  the  public,  I  will  nevertheless 
try  to  do  so,  although  scarcely  hoping  that  these  studies 
will  have  for  others  quite  the  same  interest  I  felt  in 
them  myself.^ 

^  In  beginning  this  work,  I  must  not  forget  that  it  was  anticipated 
more  than  eighty  years  ago,  in  a  book  which  still  enjoys  a  merited 


THE  LEGEND   OF   ^.NEAS.  119 

I. 

THE  LEGEND  OE  ^NEAS. 
I. 

THE  LEGENDS— WHY  THEY  DESERVE  TO  BE  STUDIED — THE 
LEGEND  OF  ^.NEAS — HOW  IT  AEOSE — ^NEAS  IN  THE 
ILIAD — HOMER  SUPPOSES  THE  RACE  OF  THE  uENEIDES 
ESTABLISHED  ON  MOUNT  IDA  —  THE  JOURNEYS  OF 
.^NEAS — HOW  IT  CAME  TO  BE  SUPPOSED  THAT  HE 
LEFT  ASIA — THE  WORSHIP  OF  APHRODITE,  MOTHER  OF 
^NEAS — GENESIS  OF  THE  LEGEND. 

It  seems  to  me  that  before  starting  to  accompany 
iEneas  on  his  adventures,  it  will  not  be  unprofitable  to 
make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  personage,  to  know 
whence  he  came,  what  was  related  of  him,  and  how 
the  history  of  his  fabulous  journeys  obtained  credence. 
If  we  would  appreciate  Virgil's  masterpiece,  and  form 
an  exact  estimate  of  the  author's  originality,  we  must 
first  ask  ourselves  what  was  furnished  him  by  tradition, 
and  what  he  himself  invented.  It  is  generally  affirmed 
that  the  uEneid  is  a  national  poem,  and  that  this  is  one 

interest.  M.  de  Bonstetten,  an  enlightened  Swiss,  who  had  taken  part 
in  the  affairs  of  his  country  during  the  Revolution,  had  travelled  in 
the  north  of  Europe,  and  made  a  long  stay  in  Italy,  published  in  1804 
a  work  entitled  Voyage  sur  la  scene  des  six  dernicrs  livres  de  VEneide. 
This  book  contains  ingenious  and  correct  ideas,  and  I  have  used  them. 
But  politics  hold  a  greater  place  in  it  than  literature.  M.  Bon- 
stetten is  a  man  of  the  world,  who  did  not  pursue  the  study  of  Virgil 
very  deeply,  and  who  went  over  the  coast  of  Latium,  thinking  more 
of  the  economical  conditions  of  the  country  than  of  ^neas  and  his 
companions,  so  I  thought  there  was  still  something  to  be  done  after 
him. 


120  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AKD   VIRGIL. 

of  its  chief  merits.  In  order  to  decide  how  much 
foundation  this  statement  has,  we  must  find  out  whence 
came  the  fables  that  tell  of  the  establishment  of  the 
Trojans  in  Latium,  whether  they  sank  deeply  into  the 
memory  of  the  people,  and  what  memories  the  poet,  in 
relating  them,  awakened  in  those  who  listened ;  for 
this  is  the  only  means  of  knowing  whether  his  poem 
was  ever  popular.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  any  thorough 
study  of  the  u^neid  must  begin  with  the  examination 
of  the  legend  of  ^neas. 

The  science  of  former  times  had  no  liking  for  legends. 
When  the  rules  of  rigorous  criticism  are  applied  to 
them,  they  certainly,  for  the  most  part,  do  not  stand 
the  examination.  Daunon,  who  in  his  Cours  cVEtudes 
historiques,  had  occasion  to  relate  the  one  with  which 
we  are  about  to  busy  ourselves,  does  so  with  great 
repugnance,  and  feels  a  sort  of  irritation  in  the  presence 
of  so  much  nonsense.  It  seems  to  him  "  a  tissue  of 
ridiculous  fictions,  of  romantic  and  incoherent  fables  ;  " 
and  he  declares  that  he  only  takes  the  trouble  to  relate 
them  in  order  to  show  their  extravagance,  the  only 
conclusion  he  draws  from  them  being  that  "  the  histories 
of  all  nations  begin  with  puerilities."  We  have 
become  less  severe,  and  these  "  puerilities ",  do  not 
seem  to  us  deserving  of  so  much  contempt.  Even 
supposing,  which  is  rare,  that  they  are  no  aid  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  past,  we  remember  that  the  legend 
has  everywhere  been  the  first  form  of  poetry,  and  this 
is  enough  to  entitle  it  to  some  consideration  in  our 
eyes.  It  is  rightly  said  that  the  child  foreshows  the 
man ;  and  so  a  nation  is  already  revealed  in  the  fables 
that  cradled  its  youth.     In  order  to  gather  exactly  the 


THE  LEGEND   OF   yENEAS.  121 

original  qualities  of  its  mind  and  natural  bent  of  its 
imagination,  we  must  go  back  to  those  old,  old  tales 
that  were  its  first  creation,  or  at  least  the  first  food  of 
its  fancy. 

The  learned  have  of  late  years  been  much  busied 
with  the  iEnean  legend.  There  are  few  since  Niebiihr 
who,  in  studying  the  past  or  the  institutions  of  liome, 
have  not  found  it  in  their  path  and  endeavoured  in 
their  own  manner  to  explain  it.^  I  am  about  to  use  all 
these  works  in  order  to  explain  in  my  turn  how 
the  legend  seems  to  me  to  have  been  formed,  how  it 
was  introduced  and  spread  among  the  Latins — in  short, 
what  reasons  Virgil  had  for  making  it  the  subject  of  his 
poem.  These  are  small  problems,  yet  difficult  to  solve, 
and  despite  the  efforts  of  learned  criticism,  everything 
has  not  yet  been  made  clear.  We  cannot  always  hope 
to  arrive  at  certainty  in  researches  of  this  kind,  and 
must  sometimes  be  content  with  probability.  Having 
lost  the  ancient  chroniclers  who  related  this  series  of 
fabulous  events,  and  being  obliged  to  reconstruct  the 
narrative  from  incomplete  accounts,  gaps  remain 
which  it  is  impossible  to  fill  up.  The  study  of 
legends  resembles  railway  journeys  in  mountainous 
countries,  where  one  passes  so  quickly  from  tunnel  to 
tunnel ;  light  and  darkness  follow  each  other  at  every 
moment.  However  annoying  these  inevitable  alter- 
nations, it  seems  to  me  much  that  some  intermittent 


1  M.  Hild,  a  French  professor,  has  taken  up  the  question  again 
in  a  very  careful  and  complete  memoir  entitled  La  Legcnde  d'^nee 
avant  Virgile,  in  which  he  summarises  the  ideas  of  German  savants, 
adding  his  own. 


122  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

light   should   have   been   cast   upon   fables    so    many 
centuries  old. 

iEneas  first  appears  to  us  in  Homer's  Iliad^  and  the 
place  he  holds  there  has  long  since  struck  the  critic. 
The  poet  clearly  tries  to  give  him  a  great  part.     He 
loads  him  with  praises  and  puts  him  beside  the  bravest. 
In    council    and  battlefield    he   and   Hector  are   the 
first  of  the  Trojans.      The  people   honour   him   as  a 
god ;  and  it  is  he  who  is  fetched  to  face  the  enemy  in 
perilous   crises,   when    the   body   of   some    hero    just 
slain  is  to    be  defended,  or   when   Achilles  is  to  be 
prevented  from  entering  the  walls  of  Troy,     ^neas  is 
in  no  wise  backward ;  and,  whoever  the  rival  pitted 
against  him,  throws  himself  resolutely  into  the  fray. 
His  first  appearance    on    the   battle-field  is  terrible: 
"  He  walks  like  a  lion,  confident  of  his  strength ;  he 
holds  before  him  his  spear  and  his  shield,  which  every- 
where covers  him,  ready  to  kill  whoever  shall  come  to 
meet    him,    and    sending    forth    cries    which     strike 
dismay."  ^     What  does  him  much  honour  and  helps  to 
give  a  great  idea  of  him  is,  that  the  gods  who  protect 
the   Greeks   get   frightened   when   they  see  him,  and 
tremble   for   the   days   of  the   enemy  he  is  about  to 
challenge,  even  when  that  enemy  is  Achilles.     But  the 
exploits  of  ^neas  never  last   long,  and   he   nowhere 
fulfils  the  great   expectation   he   has   raised.     Hardly 
does  he  enter  the  field  when  he  is  stopped  by  some 
/vexatious   incident.      It   is   true,   this    very    incident 
redounds  to  his  honour,  for  it  shows  how  dear  he  is  to 
all  the  gods.     At  the  first  danger  he  runs,  all  Olympus 

1  Iliad,  V.  299. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  iENEAS.  123 

is  astir.  Venus,  Apollo,  Mars,  Neptune,  hasten  to 
his  assistance;  they  defend  him  turn  by  turn,  they 
tend  him  when  he  is  wounded,  and  they  enclose  him 
with  a  protecting  cloud  to  screen  him  from  the  hazards 
of  the  fight. 

Sainte-Beuve,  who  has  very  delicately  analysed  the 
manner  in  which  ^neas  is  treated  in  the  Iliad,  and 
makes  some  very  ingenuous  remarks  on  the  subject, 
points  out  especially  the  advantage  which  Virgil 
afterwards  drew  from  it  in  the  composition  of  his  poem. 
"  If  Homer,"  he  tells  us,  "  had  made  ^neas  one  of  his 
heroes  of  the  first  rank,  if  he  had  caused  him  to 
perform  exploits  equal  to  those  of  Hector  and  Achilles, 
he  would  have  left  his  successor  nothing  further  to  do, 
and  would  have  exposed  him  to  dangerous  comparisons. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  made  an  insignificant  figure 
of  him,  and  represented  him  as  quite  a  secondary  and 
obscure  personage,  it  would  have  prejudiced  him,  and 
unfavourably  disposed  the  readers  of  another  epic ;  for 
that  Virgil  should  have  chosen  one  of  the  lesser  heroes 
of  Troy  to  give  him  the  first  part  in  a  new  adventure 
would  have  appeared  unseemly.  He  would  have  been 
blamed  for  wanting  to  make  an  immense  oak  and  the 
great  founder  of  Eoman  fortunes  issue  from  a  feeble 
stem!  But  having  highly  extolled  him  without 
making  him  do  much,  having  aroused  attention  to  him 
without  satisfying  it,  having  everywhere  announced  his 
exploits  and  nowhere  narrated  them;  it  really  looks 
as  if  he  had  foreseen  that  this  personage  would  be 
the  hero  of  a  second  epic  poem,  had  held  him  in 
reserve,  and  prepared  him  with  his  own  hands  for  the 


124  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

use  another  poet  was  to  make  of  him."  ^  In  reality 
Homer  could  not  of  course  foresee  Virgil,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  suppose  in  him  as  much  benevolence 
towards  an  unknown  successor;  so  we  must  seek 
elsewhere  for  the  reason  he  may  have  had  in  giving 
^neas  this  attitude.  This  reason  is  not  difficult  to  find, 
for  he  has  been  at  the  pains  to  tell  us  it  himself.  In 
the  twentieth  chapter  of  the  Iliad,  when  gods  and  men 
are  grappling  in  a  terrible  affray,  ^neas,  having  been 
persuaded  by  Apollo  to  attack  Achilles,  is  about  to 
perish.  Fortunately  Neptune  perceives  the  danger  he 
is  in.  He  addresses  Juno,  the  great  enemy  of  the 
Trojans,  and  reminds  her  that  it  is  not  in  the  fate  of 
iEneas  to  fall  before  Troy,  and  that  the  gods  preserve 
him  in  order  that  some  relics  may  remain  of  the  race 
of  Dardanus.  Then  he  adds  these  significant  words : 
"  The  family  of  Priam  have  become  hateful  to  Jupiter, 
and  now  it  is  the  turn  of  valiant  ^neas  to  reign  over 
the  Trojans,  as  well  as  the  children  of  his  children  who 
shall  be  born  in  the  future."  ^  Here  is  a  formal  pre- 
diction. Well,  we  know  that  although  poets  are 
naturally  bold,  they  do  not,  for  the  most  part,  venture 
to  predict  an  event  with  this  assurance  until  after  its 
accomplishment.  We  are  bound  to  believe,  then,  that 
at  the  time  when  the  Iliad  was  composed  there  was 
somewhere  a  little  nation  who  claimed  to  be  a  relic  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Troy,  and  that  its  kings  called  them- 
selves sons  of  ^neas.  It  is  in  order  to  flatter  the 
pretensions  of  these  princes  and  glorify  them  in  the 

1  Sainte-Beuve,  Etude  sur  Virgile,  p.  127. 

2  Iliad,  XX.  20,  306. 


THE  LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  125 

person  of  their  great  ancestor,  that  the  poet  treats  him 
with  such  consideration,  that  he  presents  him  as  a  kind 
of  rival  of  Hector,  a  pretender  to  the  throne  of  Ilium, 
and  heir-designate  of  Priam,  and  that,  not  being  able 
to  celebrate  his  exploits,  he  has  at  least  announced  the 
greatness  of  his  race.  Supposing  these  kings  to  be 
generous,  that  they  received  epic  singers  well,  and  that 
they  granted  them  the  same  honours  which  Demodochus 
receives  at  the  table  of  the  king  of  the  Phsecians,  it 
will  be  easily  understood  that  the  rhapsodist  acknow- 
ledged this  hospitality  by  loading  the  ancestor  of  his 
benefactor  with  praises. 

In  these  remote  times,  the  authority  of  Homer  was 
admitted  without  dispute,  and  there  was  no  other 
history  than  that  which  he  related.  So,  that  ^neas 
had  survived  the  ruin  of  his  country,  was  a  tradition 
accepted  by  all  the  world.  Touching  the  manner  of  his 
deliverance,  very  different  tales  were  in  circulation. 
Some  said  that  he  came  to  an  understanding  with  the 
Greeks,  and  others  that  he  escaped  them,  either  on  the 
day  or  on  the  eve  of  the  taking  of  Troy ;  but  all  agreed 
in  affirming  that  after  the  disaster  he  gathered  the 
survivors  together  and  settled  with  them  somewhere  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Mount  Ida.  Such  is  the  basis  of 
the  legend.  Homer  shows  it  to  us  at  its  starting-point, 
and  although  it  afterwards  has  to  suffer  many  changes, 
it  always  keeps  something  of  its  origin.  The  character 
of  ^neas  does  not  change,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  it 
should,  from  the  first  moment,  have  taken  the  features 
it  was  to  keep  to  the  end.  With  Homer,  ^neas  is  a 
hero,  but  still  more  a  sage.  He  speaks  wise  words  and 
gives  good  counsels.     Above  all,  he  respects  the  gods. 


126  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

Keptune,  when  he  wishes  to  save  him,  recalls  "  that  he 
offers  without  ceasing  gracious  gifts  to  the  immortal 
gods  who  inhabit  the  vast  heaven."  ^  So  he  is  their 
favourite,  and  we  have  just  seen  that  they  are  always 
on  the  alert  to  protect  him.  Such  are  the  distinctive 
qualities  of  the  personage ;  he  will  not  lose  them  either 
in  the  popular  tradition  or  in  the  narratives  of  the 
poets,  and  Virgil,  who  has  been  so  much  abused  in 
this  matter,  was  not  free  to  represent  him  otherwise 
than  he  had  been  made. 

But  the  first  form  of  the  legend  is  about  to  undergo 
a  notable  change.  At  an  uncertain  point  of  time,^ 
while  continuing  to  believe  that  ^neas  fled  at  the  last 
moment  from  Troy,  people  begin  no  longer  to  admit 
that  he  settled  in  some  town  of  Mount  Ida,  to  leave  it 
no  more,  and  he  is  made  to  undertake  wonderful  journeys 
in  search  of  a  new  country.  He  leaves  Ilion  guided  by 
a  star  which  his  mother  causes  to  shine  in  the  sky  for 
his  direction.  Some  are  content  to  send  him  towards 
neighbouring  countries,  and  suppose  him  to  stop  at 
the  borders  of  Thrace  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hebrus,  where 


^  Iliad,  XX.  298. 

2  It  has  hitherto  been  generally  thought  that  this  new  form  of  the 
legend  first  appeared  in  the  works  of  Stesichorus, — that  is  to  say,  about 
the  sixth  century  before  our  era.  In  confirmation,  the  Iliac  Table  was 
relied  upon,  a  monument  dating  from  the  Roman  Empire,  in  which  all 
the  adventures  of  Troy,  down  to  the  settlement  of  j^neas  in  Italy,  are 
roughly  portrayed  in  a  series  of  bas-reliefs.  It  is  said  that  the  last 
pictures,  namely  those  dealing  with  the  journeys  of  iEneas,  were  com- 
posed in  accordance  with  the  narrations  of  Stesichorus.  But  M.  Hild 
thinks  there  are  reasons  for  not  giving  too  much  importance  to  this 
testimony.  It  seems  to  him  that  in  these  pictures  the  influence  of 
Sesichorus  may  have  been  modified  by  recollections  of  Virgil. 


THE   LEGEND   OF  .^^NEAS.  127 

he  founds  the  town  of  ^neos ;  others  take  him  a  little 
further,  to  Pelos,  to  the  Adriatic,  along  the  Gulf  of 
Ambracia.  Once  started,  he  cannot  stop.  He  advances 
further  and  further  towards  the  "  Hesperides " ;  he 
doubles  the  coast  of  Bruttium ;  makes  a  promontory  in 
Sicily,  which  tradition  represents  as  full  of  souvenirs  of 
the  Trojans ;  touches  at  Cum?e,  where  he  buries  his 
pilot,  Misenus,  on  the  cape  which  still  bears  his  name ; 
skirts  the  coast  of  Italy,  and  definitively  settles  in 
Latium.  This  time  the  journeys  of  ^neas  are  over ; 
the  legend  has  taken  its  last  form,  and  we  are  on  the 
road  which  will  take  us  directly  to  the  u^neid. 

Whence  comes  the  change  which  it  has  undergone  since 
Homer  wrote  ?  What  reason  could  there  have  been  to 
tear  ^neas  from  the  Trojan  land  where  the  Iliad  shows 
him,  to  take  him  to  so  many  different  spots  ?  It  is 
difficult  to  say  with  certainty,  and  this  is  just  one  of 
those  gaps  which  I  just  now  anticipated.  But  if  it  be 
surprising  that  the  Homeric  narrative  should  have  been 
thus  modified,  it  is  much  more  so  that  the  Greeks 
should  have  spread  the  legend  under  its  new  form,  and 
it  is  difficult  to  understand  that  they  should  have  been 
at  pains  to  attribute  such  glorious  adventures  to  a 
Trojan  hero.  Why  did  they  undertake  to  celebrate  the 
glory  of  an  enemy,  and  whence  the  goodwill  that 
prompted  them  to  make  so  fine  a  history  of  him  ?  It 
may  be  confidently  answered  that  none  of  the  person- 
ages who  figure  in  the  Iliad  was  a  stranger  to  them. 
Such  was  the  prestige  of  this  poem,  that  Greece, 
unwilling  to  lose  any  of  it,  had  adopted  the  vanquished 
as  well  as  the  victors,  and  acknowledged  them  all  more 
or  less  as  her  children.      It  may  also   be  added  that 


128  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

among  the  Trojans  none  was  less  an  enemy  of  the 
Greeks  than  ^neas.  Homer  depicts  him  as  greatly 
irritated  against  the  divine  Priam,  who  does  not  honour 
him  as  he  deserves.  So  wise  a  man  as  he  could  not 
much  approve  the  conduct  of  Paris ;  and  according  to 
some,  he  always  advised  that  Helen  should  be  restored 
to  her  husband.  It  is  also  said  that,  foreseeing  the 
coming  ruin,  he  came  to  an  agreement  with  the  enemy, 
and  made  his  peace  independently.  Of  all  the  Trojans 
he  was  therefore  the  one  against  whom  the  Greeks  must 
feel  the  least  resentment,  and  whose  origin  they  could 
most  easily  forgive.  Yet  however  plausible  these 
reasons  may  appear,  they  do  not  prevent  one  from 
feeling  surprised  that  the  Greeks  should  have  paid 
such  honour  to  a  companion  of  Hector,  who  had  fought 
so  vigorously  against  Diomedes  and  Achilles.  Had 
they  been  quite  free  to  choose  the  personages  to  whom 
they  should  grant  the  honour  of  these  great  adventures, 
they  would  doubtless  have  given  the  preference  to  one 
of  their  own  chiefs.  They  had  one — the  most  glorious 
and  most  beloved  of  all ;  he,  who  best  represented  their 
character  and  country,  and  of  whom  so  many  surprising 
stories  were  already  told  that  it  would  have  cost  little 
to  attribute  a  few  more  exploits  to  him.  This  was 
Ulysses.  He  was  then,  if  tradition  may  be  trusted,  in 
some  isle  near  Italy,  where  the  enchantress  Circe 
kept  him.  Nothing  was  easier  than  to  suppose  that  he 
had  passed  thence  into  Latium,  and  to  make  him  the 
ancestor  of  the  great  Eoman  family.  We  have  proof 
that  some  tried  to  give  this  turn  to  the  legend,  and  to 
substitute  Ulysses  for  ^neas.  If,  in  spite  of  national 
vanity  and  the  attraction  of  a  popular  name,  this  version 


THE  LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  129 

did  not  survive  ;  if  the  Greeks  accepted  the  other, 
although  it  glorified  a  Trojan  to  the  detriment  of  a  hero 
of  their  blood,  we  must  believe  that  they  were  not  free 
to  act  differently,  and  that  it  was  somehow  or  other 
forced  upon  them. 

There  is  yet  another  observation  which  one  cannot 
fail  to  make  when  reading  the  different  accounts  of 
the  journeys  of  ^neas.  Each  of  these  narratives 
descriptive  of  his  arrival  in  a  different  country  supposes 
that  he  stops  there  and  leaves  it  no  more ;  and  that 
his  permanent  settlement  may  be  the  more  certain,  it 
tells  us  that  he  died  in  the  country,  and  that  his 
remains  are  preserved  there.  This  multiplicity  of 
tombs,  all  consecrated  to  the  same  person,  occasioned 
some  embarrassment  to  good  Denys  of  Halicarnassus, 
who  took  the  whole  fable  seriously.  It  simply  proves 
that  the  legend  was  not  made  all  at  once ;  that  it  was 
not  born  entirely  in  the  imagination  of  one  man ;  that 
each  of  the  excursions  of  ^neas  formed  a  particular 
and  isolated  narrative ;  and  that  they  were  only  joined 
together  to  form  an  entire  history  later  on.  Whence 
I  conclude  that  if,  as  I  have  just  said,  the  legend  of 
^neas  is  not  a  pure  fancy,  a  capricious  invention  of 
the  Greeks,  but  involves  some  circumstance  inde- 
pendent of  their  will,  which  forced  it  on  them,  as  it 
were,  we  must  believe  that  this  circumstance  was 
presented  to  them  several  times  in  succession,  and  in 
different  places. 

Can  we  take  another  step  in  the  midst  of  this  dark- 
ness ?  Dare  we  guess  what  this  circumstance  was 
which  gave  rise  to  the  legend  ?  Conjectures,  it  may 
well  be  thought,  have  not  been  wanting ;  but  I  only 


130  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

see  one  that  can  quite  satisfy  us  and  account  for  all ; 
this  is  the  suggestion  of  Preller  in  his  Mijthologie 
Romcdne}  According  to  him,  the  legend  arose  from 
the  worship  rendered  by  sailors  to  Venus,  or  rather 
to  the  goddess  Aphrodite,  as  the  Greeks  called  her. 
Aphrodite  is  not  only  the  personification  of  beauty 
and  love ;  she  was  born  of  the  foam  of  the  waves 
and  sways  the  sea.  Lucretius,  in  the  hymn  which 
he  sings  in  her  honour  at  the  beginning  of  his  poem, 
addresses  her  thus :  "  Before  thee,  a  goddess,  the 
winds  fly  away.  When  thou  appearest  the  clouds 
disperse ;  the  waves  of  the  sea  seem  to  smile,  and 
the  heavens  for  thee  are  all  gleaming  with  tenderest 
light."  2  The  Greek  sailor  who  has  put  himself  under 
her  protection  when  landing  on  some  strange  shore 
does  not  fail  to  build  a  shrine  to  her,  or  at  least  to 
raise  her  an  altar.  It  is  a  witness  to  his  gratitude 
for  the  safe  voyage  he  has  made.  Aphrodite  and 
^neas  are  intimately  bound  together ;  and  the  homage 
rendered  to  the  mother  at  once  recalls  the  son — 
the  more  so  that  this  divine  mother  bears  a  name 
which  quite  reminds  one  of  the  Trojan  hero,  being 
called  the  "^nean  Aphrodite."  ^     We  know  from  Denys 


1  Preller,  Romische  MythoL,  667,  et  seq.  * 

"  Lucretius,  I.  6. 

3  This  name  of  AppoSlrr)  Aiveias  has  been  explained  in  various 
ways.  Some  see  in  it,  indeed,  a  souvenir  of  iEneas,  and  think  it  was 
intended  to  connect  the  name  of  the  son  with  that  of  the  mother, 
while  others  believe  it  an  epithet,  meaning  "the  noble,  glorious 
Aphrodite."  Herr  Warner,  who  studied  the  legend  of  ^neas,  says  in 
an  interesting  memoir  {Die  Sage  von  den  Wanderungcn  des  u^neaSy 
Leipzig,  1882)  that  the  worship  of  Astarte  may  possibly  have  pre- 
ceded  that  of  Aphrodite  in  the  various  countries  where  JEneas  is 


THE  LEGEND   OF  iENEAS.  131 

of  Halicarnassus  that  sanctuaries  of  this  kind  were 
very  frequent  on  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean. 
They  existed  at  Cythera,  at  Zacynthus,  at  Lemas,  and 
at  Actium,  in  every  place  where  maritime  commerce 
was  a  little  brisk,  and  in  all  of  them  the  name  of 
^neas  was  joined  to  that  of  Aphrodite.  When  a 
Greek  vessel  touched  at  these  shores,  and  the  mariner 
worshipped  at  the  rough  shrine  raised  by  his  pre- 
decessors, could  he  hear  names  which  the  Iliad  had 
made  familiar  to  him  from  his  youth  without  a 
world  of  mythological  memories  awaking  in  him  ?  As 
it  is  in  his  nature  to  create  fables,  and  his  vivid 
imagination  unceasingly  revives  the  past,  he  thinks 
he  perceives  the  exile  of  Troy  seeking  a  home  for  his 
banished  gods.  "It  is  doubtless  here  that  he  settled, 
and  as  if  to  take  possession  of  the  country,  he  built 
a  temple  to  his  mother."  It  is  true  that  in  another 
voyage  he  may  find  elsewhere  a  tomb  of  Aphrodite  like 
the  one  he  has  just  seen,  and  which  calls  up  the  same 
memories  in  him.  He  will  simply  apply  to  the  new 
country  what  he  said  of  the  other,  and  affirm  that  this 
time  he  has  found  the  real  dwelling  of  ^neas.  Thus, 
little  by  little,  the  legend  was  formed,  lengthening  at 
each  voyage,  ever  finishing  and  ever  beginning  again, 
until  it  occurred  to  a  compiler  more  clever  than  the  ' 


supposed  to  have  landed.  The  vessels  of  Tyre,  coming  before  those  of 
Greece,  may  have  left  shrines  there  which  afterwards,  when  the  Greek 
navigators  got  the  upper  hand,  were  consecrated  to  the  Greek  goddess. 
In  this  case  iEneas  may  possibly  have  taken  the  place  of  some 
Phoenician  hero,  who  was  worshipped  together  with  Astarte.  This 
hypothesis  is  ingenious,  but  in  the  prevailing  darkness  I  never- 
theless prefer  not  to  go  further  back  than  the  Greek  navigators. 


132     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

rest  to  weld  together  all  these  separate  narratives  in 
one  whole.  He  took  ^neas  on  his  departure  from 
Troy,  on  the  day  when  he  carried  off  his  father  and 
his  gods  from  his  flaming  home;  he  made  him  touch 
in  turn  at  all  the  ports  of  the  Archipelago  where  some 
local  tradition  indicated  his  presence  ;  he  then  led  him 
to  the  shores  of  Sicily  and  Italy ;  and  as  the  town  of 
Ardea  in  Latium  was  the  last  spot  where  he  raised  a 
temple  to  Aphrodite,  he  supposed  this  to  be  the  end 
of  his  long  journey,  and  that  the  great  traveller  had 
at  last  found  that  new  country  "  which  fled  unceasingly 
before  him." 

The  legend  thus  related  became  quite  different  from 
what  it  was  in  Homer.     Homer  shows  us  ^neas  quietly 
installed  with  his  people  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Troy ; 
the  new  narrative  presents  him  incurring  all  kinds  of 
adventures,  to  found  at  last  a  city  as  far  off  as  Latium, 
Nothing  more  contrary  could   therefore  be  imagined. 
But  scrupulous  scholars  were  found  who  endeavoured 
to  arrange  everything.     They  supposed  that  after  sailing 
to  the  Italian  shores  and  building  Lavinium,  ^neas 
left  his  new  kingdom  to  his  son,  and  returned  with  part 
of  his  people  to  his  residence  on  Mount  Ida.     This  was 
an  ingenious  way  of  contenting  everybody;    yet  the 
compromise  was  not  favourably  received,  and  at  the 
risk  of  running  counter  to  the  Iliad,  ^neas  was  left  to 
live  and  die  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  where  such  great 
destinies  awaited  his  descendants. 


THE  LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  133 


11. 


HOW  THE  LEGEND  OF  iENEAS  PENETRATED  INTO  ITALY — 
OPINION  OF  NIEBUHR — IT  DOES  NOT  REPLACE  THE 
ITALIAN  LEGENDS,  BUT  RATHER  OVERLAPS  THEM — 
IT  IS  CONNECTED  WITH  THE  ORIGIN  OF  LAVINIUM — 
HYPOTHESIS  OF  SCHWEGLER — THE  PROCESS  OF  ASSIMI- 
LATION BY  WHICH  ^NEAS  CAME  TO  ASSUME  AN 
ITALIAN  PHYSIOGNOMY — HOW  THE  GREEKS  COMMUNI- 
CATED THE  LEGEND  TO  THE  ITALIANS — IN  WHAT 
MANNER  IT  WAS  RECEIVED — THE  ROMANS  NOT  HOSTILE 
TO  FOREIGN  IDEAS  AND  USAGES — THE  INFLUENCE  OF 
GREECE  ON  ROME  IN  EARLY  TIMES. 

The  legend  is  completed ;  it  lias  taken  its  place  among 
the  multitude  of  marvellous  stories  which  feed  the  Greek 
imagination.  But  thus  far  it  is  known  to  the  Greeks 
alone,  and  it  remains  for  us  to  see  how  they  transmitted 
it  to  the  Latins.  We  must  above  all  get  to  understand 
why  the  Latins  received  it  so  submissively  ;  how  it  was 
that  they  yielded  to  the  imposition  of  unknown  an- 
cestors ;  and  how  they  consented  to  accept  a  vanquished 
and  proscribed  foreigner,  of  whom  they  had  heard 
nothing,  as  the  first  author  of  their  race. 

This  appears  to  Niebuhr  to  be  quite  inexplicable. 

It  does  not  seem  to  him  possible  "  that  so  proud  a 
State  as  Eome,  which  despised  every  foreign  element," 
should  have  been  so  condescending  on  this  occasion, 
when  it  was  a  question  of  the  history  of  its  origin — 
that  is  to  say,  of  traditions  which  ancient  peoples 
regarded  as  sacred,  and  on  which  they  usually  based 
their   national    religion.      So   he   takes   the   pains   to 


134  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORA.CE   AND    VIRGIL. 

imagine  an  hypothesis  which  will  accommodate  every- 
thing. According  to  him,  the  inhabitants  of  Latium 
were  Pelasgians,  like  the  Teucrians,  the  Arcadians,  the 
Epirotes,  the  CEnotrians,  etc.  Early  separated,  estab- 
lished in  distant  countries,  these  peoples,  notwithstand- 
ing, never  lost  sight  of  each  other.  Keligion  formed  a 
bond  of  union  between  them ;  they  visited  together  the 
Isle  of  Samothrace,  where  great  mysteries  were  cele- 
brated. It  is  here,  in  these  friendly  meetings,  that  the 
legend  must  have  arisen.  It  was  only  a  more  lively 
and  striking  manner  of  expressing  the  relationship  of 
these  different  peoples,  and  preserving  its  memory. 
To  state  that  a  chief  from  Troy  had  gone  through 
the  world,  leaving  in  certain  countries  a  part  of  the 
people  who  accompanied  him — what  is  this  but 
affirming  that  all  those  who  inhabit  these  different 
countries  sprang  from  the  same  stock,  and  remem- 
bering that  they  are  brothers  ?  The  legend  is  therefore 
natural  and  indigenous  among  them.  It  does  not  come 
from  abroad ;  they  created  it  themselves,  and  this  alone 
can  explain  its  having  become  popular.  Such  is 
Niebuhr's  opinion,  which  he  sets  forth  with  profound 
conviction,  and  which  appears  to  him  to  be  truth  itself.^ 
Unfortunately  it  is  only  a  conjecture,  and  I  think  it 
entirely  lacking  in  probability.  The  little  nation  of 
husbandmen  and  bandits  who  inhabited  the  plains  of 
Latium  had  neither  ports  nor  vessels.  If  they  had  been 
obliged  to  go  and  seek  the  legend  in  the  sacred  Isle  of 
Samothrace,  I  think  they  would  never  have  known  it ; 


1  "  The  hypothesis  I  have  just  advanced  is  not  for  me  a  desperate 
attempt  to  find  some  outlet  or  other ;  it  is  the  result  of  my  conviction. " 


THE  LEGEND   OF  .TINEAS.  135 

it  was  the  legend  which  came  and  sought  them  out. 
It  is  believed  now  that  they  held  it  from  the  Greek 
navigators,  and  that  it  came  to  them  along  with  many 
others,  which  ended  by  modifying  their  religious  beliefs. 
From  the  moment  we  do  not  accept  the  hypothesis  of 
Niebuhr,  we  have  to  solve  the  problem  which  he  avoids. 
We  have,  then,  to  look  for  the  reasons  which  permitted 
the  Latins  so  readily  to  accept  the  ancestors  presented 
to  them  by  the  Greeks. 

I  imagine,  to  start  with,  that  if  they  did  not  feel 
much  enthusiasm  for  the  legend  the  first  time  that  it 
was  related  to  them,  it  did  not,  on  the  other  hand, 
inspire  them  with  one  of  those  repugnances  which 
habit  does  not  overcome.  This  was  the  essential  point: 
before  being  accepted,  it  had  to  be  listened  to.  It  is 
probable  that  it  would  not  have  been  listened  to,  but 
would  have  been  rejected  at  once,  had  it  pretended  to 
substitute  itself  for  any  of  the  ancient  traditions  of  the 
country.  But  it  was  not  so  audacious  or  so  clumsy. 
The  Eomans  related  the  foundation  and  the  first  years 
of  their  city  in  a  certain  way.  They  recounted  the 
miraculous  history  of  the  twins,  that  of  the  king- 
pontiff,  that  of  the  conqueror  of  Alba,  etc.  ^neas  took 
care  not  to  meddle  with  Eomulus,  Numa,  the  kings  of 
Eome,  or  to  appropriate  their  exploits.  He  was  merely 
made  the  ancestor  of  the  first  of  them,  and  placed  in 
those  remote  times  to  which  the  most  ancient  Latin 
traditions  did  not  reach  back.  The  popular  traditions 
were  therefore  not  interfered  with,  and  the  history  of 
Eome  was  only  made  to  begin  a  little  earlier,  which 
could  not  wound  its  pride.  Thus,  the  new  legend  hav- 
ing taken  care  to  fix  itself  in  a  void,  had  sheltered  itself 


136  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

from  all  objection.  But  it  was  not  enough  for  it  to  be 
listened  to  without  ill-will ;  it  had  to  gain  foothold  in  a 
land  where  it  had  no  roots.  A  legend  is  by  its  nature 
light  and  volatile.  If  it  remains  in  the  air,  it  is  liable 
to  be  blown  about  by  all  the  winds,  and,  after  a  few  years, 
to  be  dispersed  and  lost.  In  order  to  live,  it  must  lean  on 
something  lasting.  Either  it  must  be  incorporated  in 
certain  religious  rites,  and  become  a  sort  of  explanation 
of  them,  when  the  persistence  of  the  rites  preserves  the 
memory  of  the  legendary  narrative  ;  or  it  must  become 
connected  with  a  town,  and  insinuate  itself  among  the 
fables  related  concerning  its  origin,  which  assures  it  the 
lontjest  duration.  But  with  regard  to  Eome,  there  was 
nothing  to  be  done,  the  ground  having  been  taken  up  long 
since ;  so  they  contented  themselves  with  Lavinium,  and 
^neas  passed  for  its  founder.  It  remains  to  be  seen  why 
this  town  was  chosen  in  preference  to  others,  and  what 
special  facility  it  offered  for  the  establishment  of  the 
legend.  An  ingenious  hypothesis  of  Schwegier  ^  renders 
the  task  easy.  Lavinium  was  the  holy  city  of  the 
Latins.  Each  town,  each  state,  like  each  family,  had 
its  protecting  gods,  which  were  placed  in  a  consecrated 
spot,  and  to  which  great  homage  was  rendered.  Those 
of  the  Latins  dwelt  at  Lavinium.  This  tpwn  was 
therefore  for  the  entire  confederation  what  the  shrine 
of  the  Lares  was  for  the  house  of  a  citizen,  and  the 
Temple  of  Vesta  and  of  the  Penates  were  for  Eome — 
that  is  to  say,  the  religious  centre  and  spiritual  capital 
of  the  league.    Schwegier  concludes,  from  some  particu- 

^  In  his  excellent  History  of  Ronie,  which  death  prevented  him 
from  finishing. 


THE    LEGEND    OF   ^.XEAS.  137 

lars  furnished  by  the  ancient  scholiasts,  that  it  was  built 
especially  for  the  part  it  was  destined  to  play,  and  that 
round  about  the  abode  of  the  common  Penates  the  entire 
confederation  sent  a  certain  number  of  colonists,  charged 
to  honour  the  gods  of  the  country.  It  resembled  one 
of  those  improvised  centres  which  formed  themselves 
in  Asia  Minor  near  the  theatres  and  the  temples  where 
the  festivals  of  the  federated  cities  were  celebrated.^ 
We  may  say,  then,  that  it  had  no  particular  founder, 
since  it  was  founded  by  a  federation  of  cities ;  and  as 
such  artificial  creations  do  not  favour  the  growth  of 
legends,  probably  none  were  related  concerning  its 
origin,  and  so  that  of  ^]neas  met  with  no  competition. 
It  had  the  advantage  of  furnishing  a  fabulous  past  to  a 
city  devoid  of  one ;  why  should  it  find  a  bad  reception  ? 
Besides,  was  not  so  wise,  so  pious  a  hero,  the  son  of 
Venus,  the  favourite  of  the  Olympian  gods,  completely 
fitted  to  figure  as  the  founder  of  a  holy  city  ? 

Here  then  is  ^neas  established  at  Lavinium  as  its 
acknowledged  founder.  But  the  Latins  still  had  among 
them  an  alien  by  birth,  and  as  such  it  was  difficult  for 
him  ever  to  become  popular  in  his  new  country.  We 
are  about  to  see  how  this  disadvantage,  without  quite 
disappearing,  which  was  impossible,  was  at  least 
mitigated  in  the  sequel.  It  has  been  remarked  that  in 
young  races   the   memory  of  facts   is   generally  more 


^  Does  not  the  sight  of  these  cities,  founded  expressly  to  be  the 
religious  centres  of  confederated  peoples,  remind  one  of  Washington, 
which  owes  its  birth  to  analogous  reasons  ?  Politics  have  done 
in  the  United  States  what  religion  did  among  the  confederations  of 
anti(^uity. 


138  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND    VIRGIL. 

tenacious  than  the  memory  of  names  ;  that  they  do  not 
forget  the  marvellous  incidents  they  heard  related  in 
their  youths,  but  that  they  seldom  remember  to  whom 
they  were  attributed ;  so  that  these  tales,  gradually 
becoming  detached  from  the  personages  to  whom  they 
were  at  first  attributed,  end  by  floating  in  the  air,  ready 
to  fall  again  on  all  who  successively  occupy  public  atten- 
tion. Several  generations  of  legendary  heroes  are  thus 
often  seen  to  inherit  the  same  adventures  in  turn.  There 
was  a  certain  number  of  these  roving  legends  among  the 
Latins,  as  elsewhere.  These  settled  upon  ^neas,  and  a 
whole  history  was  composed  for  him,  of  which  Greece, 
most  certainly,  had  no  idea.  It  was  doubtless  still  said 
that  he  came  from  Troy ;  he  was  still  the  same  wise, 
religious  hero  of  whom  Homer  had  sung ;  and  he  was 
still  represented,  according  to  usage,  bearing  off  his 
father  and  his  gods  upon  his  shoulders,  to  save  them 
from  the  conflagration.  Then  comes  the  first  serious 
change.  In  the  Latin  legend,  the  gods  he  carries  off  are 
no  longer  the  same.  The  Greeks  supposed  him  to  have 
saved  the  Palladium,  the  miraculous  statue  involving  the 
destinies  of  Troy ;  the  Latins  substituted  the  Penates 
for  the  Palladium.  These  were  especially  Italian  gods, 
quite  peculiar  to  the  race,  and  bearing  its  mark.  All 
the  nations  of  antiquity  imagined  protecting  gods  of  the 
family,  and  made  them  according  to  their  idea.  Those 
of  the  Eomans  were  gods  of  "  alimentation  and  nourish- 
ment," and  they  received  their  name  from  the  very 
place  where  the  household  food  was  kept  {penus).  Such 
are  the  gods  which  the  brilliant  son  of  Aphrodite, 
the  protected  of  Apollo,  carries  away  with  him,  and  for 
which  he  desires  to  build  a  city.     He  only  builds  this 


THE   LEGEND   OF   y^^NEAS.  189 

city  in  accordance  with  the  formal  behoof  of  Fate  ;  but 
whereas  among  the  Greeks  destiny  is  expressed  by  the 
voices  of  the  priests  of  Delphi  and  Dodona,  the  Latins 
substituted  for  these  predictions  the  oracles  of  the 
country,  which  are  far  from  being  so  poetic.  Thus,  in 
the  new  legend,  ^neas  is  told  that  he  will  not  succeed 
in  his  enterprise  until  he  has  immolated  the  white  sow 
with  her  thirty  little  ones,  and  when  his  companions, 
in  their  voracity,  have  devoured  even  their  tables. 
These  are  fables  which,  by  their  great  simplicity,  betray 
a  Latin  origin,  and  have  nothing  at  all  in  common  with 
Greece.  The  death  of  ^neas,  like  his  life,  conformed 
to  the  legends  of  Latium  ;  and  what  is  told  of  the  old 
kings  of  the  country  when  they  die  is  repeated  of  him  : 
one  day  he  disappears  and  suddenly  ceases  to  be  seen 
{non  comparuit),  and  it  is  supposed  that  he  plunged  into 
the  waters  of  the  Numicius,  a  sacred  river.  Thenceforth 
he  is  honoured  as  a  god,  by  the  name  of  the  very 
divinity  in  which  he  was  lost,  and  is  no  longer  called 
^neas,  but  Jupiter  indiges.  This  is  not  how  the  Greeks 
deified  their  heroes.  They  openly  placed  them  in 
Olympus,  preserving  their  human  features,  and  honour- 
ing them  by  their  names.  But  ^neas  was  to  become 
quite  Latin ;  and  from  the  moment  he  touches  Italian 
soil,  his  new  country  takes  possession  of  him.  She 
gives  him  adventures,  she  gives  him  a  legend,  she  ends 
by  even  taking  from  him  the  name  by  which  Greek 
poets  sang  of  him.  This  was  the  only  way  the  legend 
could  become  acclimatized  in  the  country  where  it  was 
to  be  definitely  fixed.  It  had  to  assume  its  spirit  and 
its  character,  and  to  lose,  little  by  little,  all,  whether  in 
the  personage  or  his  history,  that  might  be  repugnant 


140  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

to  the  Eomans.  It  would,  of  course,  be  a  great  mistake 
to  believe  that  all  these  changes  were  meditated  and 
thought  out ;  that  they  were  the  fruit  of  deep  combina- 
tions. Such  processes  are  not  at  all  suited  to  primitive 
epochs.  But  while  admitting  that,  on  the  whole,  the 
work  was  done  by  chance  and  unconsciously,  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  the  legend  must  have  profited  by  the 
facilities  it  found,  and  that  it  followed  the  natural 
paths  which  lay  before  it  in  order  to  penetrate  into 
the  heart  of  the  country.  Doubtless  we  cannot  hope, 
at  this  distance  of  time,  to  distinguish  very  exactly  how 
things  happened ;  yet  the  knowledge  we  possess  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  different  peoples  allows  us  to 
form  some  very  probable  conjectures.  For  example, 
it  will  not  cost  a  very  great  effort  of  the  imagination 
to  picture  to  ourselves  what  usually  took  place  when 
Greek  navigators  touched  at  these  coasts  six  or  seven 
centuries  before  our  era.  They  almost  always  found  the 
place  taken.  The  Phoenicians  had  preceded  them,  and 
had  long  since  been  masters  of  the  commerce.  But  the 
Greeks  possessed  advantages  over  them  which  they 
well  knew  how  to  use.  The  Phoenician  was  before 
everything  a  greedy  merchant.  Who  only  thought  of 
selling  his  carpets,  his  stuffs,  and  his  cups  of  chiselled 
metal,  as  dearly  as  possible.  Of  course  the  Greek  did 
not  disdain  good  profits  ;  there  never  was  a  more  heed- 
ful and  adroit  merchant ;  but  he  took  with  him  into  the 
countries  he  visited  something  more  than  the  products 
of  his  industry.  Eoving  the  world  for  his  pleasure, 
almost  as  much  as  for  his  prolit,  when  business  was 
over  he  was  not  always  in  a  hurry  to  lock  up  his  money 
and  be  off.     He  was  already  that  "  little  Greek  "  whom 


THE  LEGEND   OF   .ENEAS.  141 

the  Eomans  so  often  laughed  at — supple,  curious,  chatty, 
insinuating ;    soon   at   ease   in   the   homes    of    others, 
and  knowing  how  to  make  himself   necessary   there. 
Like  his  great  ancestor  Ulysses,  he  loved,  when  visiting 
cities,  "  to  know  the  customs  of  the  peoples."     While 
selling  his  goods,  he  looked  and  observed.     Being  sharp 
and  perspicacious,  he  was  not  long  in  remarking  that 
these  peoples,  whom  he  treated  as  barbarians,  had  beliefs 
and   usac^es   much   resemblincj    his    own.       When   he 
heard   them   talk,  he  seized  words   and   phrases   that 
recalled   his   own   tongue.      In   these   days    such    re- 
semblances no  longer  surprise  us  ;  for  everybody  knows 
that  all  these  peoples  belonged  to  the  same  race  of  men, 
that  after  living  long  together  they  separated  with  a 
common  stock  of  words  and  ideas,  and   that  it  is  not 
astonishing   that   this   stock  should   be  recognised   in 
their  civilizations  and  their  idioms.     But  this  was  un- 
known to  the  Greeks  and  unsuspected  by  all  around 
them.     There  was  only  one  means  of  explaining  every- 
thing, and  they  made  great  use  of  it.     They  supposed 
that  their  ancestors,  or,  if  not  a  Greek,  at  least  one  of  the 
Trojans  celebrated  by  Homer,  had  been  to  these  shores 
and  perhaps  founded  a  colony.     Henceforth  there  was 
no  longer  room  for  surprise  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
country  should  have  retained  ways  of  speaking  and  act- 
ing which  recalled  Greece ;  it  was  a  heritage  that  had 
come  to  them,  without  their  knowledge,  from  these  old 
travellers.     But  the  Greeks  were  not  people  to  stop  at 
a  vague  hypothesis  :  in  such  fertile  brains  suppositions 
soon   became   realities.     As  generally   happens  to  the 
self-confident,  everything  served  to  convince  them  of 
the  truth  of  their  conjectures ;  and  the  adventures  of 


142  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

the  hero  of  Troy,  of  which  their  memory  was  full, 
recurred  to  their  thoughts  aioropos  of  everything.  The 
names  of  persons  and  places  met  with  on  their  road 
suggested  unexpected  connections  to  them  at  every 
moment.  They  made  their  hosts  talk,  scarcely  listened 
to  them,  and  always  found  in  their  narratives  some 
detail  that  set  them  thinking  of  their  own  legends. 
Having  received  from  heaven  over  and  above  every- 
thing the  charming  gift  of  invention,  they  added  much 
to  what  was  told  them,  and  from  all  these  different 
elements,  to  which  they  gave  a  uniform  colouring,  they 
excelled  in  manufacturing  amusing  fables,  which  they 
were  never  tired  of  relating. 

Let  us  go  further.  Can  we,  after  imagining  how 
these  fables  must  have  come  into  being,  picture  to  our- 
selves the  manner  of  their  reception  ?  No  one  has  told 
us ;  but  there  is  something  which  brings  it  to  our 
knowledge  more  surely  than  if  anybody  had  been  at 
the  pains  to  instruct  us.  They  were  reinemhercd,  and 
those  who  heard  them  told  gave  them  a  place  beside 
their  national  traditions,  which  they  sometimes  sup- 
planted. This  is  the  victorious  proof  of  the  success 
obtained  by  them.  This  success  should  not  surprise 
us.  We  know  a  little  better  now  in  what  state  of 
civilization  were  the  nations  of  antiquity  Vhen  the 
Greeks  began  to  visit  them.  In  various  parts  of  Italy 
deep  excavations  have  been  made,  which  brought  to 
light  some  very  ancient  tombs.  The  objects  found  in 
them  are  exceedingly  rough.  -They  are  usually  vases 
fashioned  by  hand,  of  impure  clay,  imperfectly  polished, 
and  with  their  grey  or  blackish  surface  ornamented 
merely  with  lines  and  circles — that  is  to  say,  the  first 


THE   LEGEND   OF   .^.NEAS.  143 

decoration  men  ever  thought  of.  Evidently  those  who 
used  those  vases  and  possessed  no  others  were  still 
almost  barbarians.  But  those  barbarians  were  not 
people  to  acquiesce  in  their  barbarism,  and  they  asked 
nothing  better  than  to  leave  it.  The  proof  of  this  is, 
that  near  this  primitive  pottery  were  found  pieces  of 
amber  from  the  North  Sea,  scarabei  and  cups  brought 
by  the  Phoenicians,  and,  in  more  recent  tombs,  cups 
with  archaic  figures  of  Greek  origin.  Those  people 
then,  so  rough  and  savage  in  appearance,  were  never- 
theless endowed  with  the  taste  for  a  more  exalted  art. 
They  did  not  disdain  its  products,  but  welcomed  the 
merchants  who  introduced  it  to  them,  and  probably 
paid  them  highly. 

This  characteristic  is  striking  among  the  most  ancient 
Eomans.  As  we  have  just  seen,  Niebuhr  states  that 
Home  in  her  pride  "despised  all  foreign  elements." 
The  truth  is  just  the  contrary.  She  doubtless  had  a 
great  opinion  of  herself,  and  early  foresaw  the  part  she 
was  to  play  in  the  world ;  but  this  legitimate  pride 
never  degenerated  into  ridiculous  vanity.  She  did  not 
despise  her  enemies  even  after  they  were  vanquished, 
knew  how  to  acknowledge  what  was  good  in  them,  and 
when  necessary  she  appropriated  it.  "  Our  ancestors," 
said  Sallust,  "  were  people  as  wise  as  bold.  Pride  did 
not  prevent  them  from  borrowing  the  institutions  of 
their  neighbours  when  they  saw  any  profit  in  them. 
Their  arms  are  those  of  the  Samnites,  and  to  the 
Etruscans  they  owe  the  insignia  of  their  magistrates. 
Whenever  they  found  among  their  allies  or  their 
enemies  anything  worth  taking,  they  sought  to  intro- 
duce it  among  themselves.     They  preferred  rather  to 


144  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

imitate  others  than  to  envy  them."  ^  This  is  the  true 
character  of  the  people.  If  they  sometimes  appear 
vainly  self-complacent,  and  impertinently  disdainful 
of  the  foreigner,  it  is  mere  comedy.  The  attitude  a 
Eoman  thinks  himself  obliged  to  assume  in  public,  the 
way  he  talks  when  others  are  listening,  his  manner  of 
acting  when  looked  at,  are  not  always  in  conformity 
with  his  true  sentiments.  This  is  remarked  in  his 
dealings  with  the  Greeks.  He  doubtless  affects  to 
laugh  at  them  in  public,  but  he  cannot  do  without 
them ;  and  we  may  be  certain  that  the  very  first  day 
he  saw  them  he  submitted,  without  being  able  to  help 
himself,  to  the  ascendency  of  that  witty  and  insinuating 
race  who  brought  him  such  beautiful  works  and  told 
him  such  good  stories. 

When  speaking  of  the  introduction  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion into  Eome,  the  mind  is  generally  carried  back  to  a 
precise  date,  and  thinks  of  the  day  in  the  year  514  B.C., 
when  a  captive  of  Tarentum  caused  a  regular  drama 
imitated  from  the  masterpieces  of  Greece  to  be  played 
in  a  theatre  which  had  hitherto  only  been  used  for 
Etruscan  dancers  and  Italian  buffoons.  It  is,  in  truth, 
a  decisive  moment  in  the  history  of  Eome.  That  day 
the  door  was  for  the  first  time  flung  wide  open  to 
Greek  literature,  and  by  the  way  which  had  been  thus 
prepared  for  her,  she  soon  passed  bodily  through.  But 
when  this  species  of  coup  d'itat  took  place,  Greece,  had 
long  since  gradually  and  noiselessly  penetrated  Eome, 
and  what  she  had  done  in  those  few  centuries  was  more 
important  than  what  remained  to  be  accomplished.     To 

^  Catiline,  51. 


THE  LEGEND   OF  .ENEAS.  .  145 

give  Eome  a  literature  was  doubtless  a  great  under- 
taking ;  but  was  it  not  a  much  graver  one  yet  to  modify 
the  manners  of  the  city,  and  by  a  secret  and  continuous 
process  to  introduce  a  new  spirit  into  it  ?  She  gained 
this  result  in  that  first  intercourse  of  which  history  has 
not  preserved  the  memory.  Above  all,  the  national 
religion  came  out  quite  changed.  We  know  what  was 
the  essential  character  of  the  old  Eoman  religion.  The 
gods  it  honoured  had  scarcely  taken  human  form ;  they 
still  lacked  individuality  and  life,  and  behind  them 
were  seen  the  forces  and  phenomena  of  the  nature  they 
faintly  personified.  It  is  from  Greece  that  the  Eomans 
learned  to  make  entirely  animate  beings  of  them,  to 
give  them  passions,  and  to  attribute  adventures  to 
them.  They  doubtless  went  about  it  in  earnest.  Prof. 
Hild  bids  us  remark  that  those  vague  divinities,  v/hich 
a  father  of  the  Church  calls  "  incorporeal  and  intangible 
shadows,"  offered  but  meagre  food  to  the  imagination  of 
the  crowd.  Having  once  beheld  the  living  figures  of 
the  Hellenic  Pantheon,  it  would  have  no  others.  Thus 
was  introduced  into  Eome  the  Greek  mythology,  which, 
in  creating  a  history  for  all  these  stiff  and  inanimate 
gods,  gave  them  life  ;  and  thus  was  established  the 
worship  of  the  heroes,  sons  of  the  gods,  a  sort  of  inter- 
mediate being  between  divinity  and  manhood,  from 
which  the  poetry  of  the  Greeks  had  drawn  such  great 
advantages,  ^neas  entered  with  the  others,  and,  like 
them,  met  with  a  good  reception. 


146  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 


III. 

AT  WHAT  MOMENT  DID  THE  LEGEND  FIRST  BECOME 
KNOWN  TO  THE  ROMANS  ? — IT  IS  FIRST  MENTIONED 
AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  WAR  WTIH  PYRRHUS — THE 
IMPORTANCE  IT  TAKES  AFTER  THE  PUNIC  WARS — THE 
LEGEND  AMONG  THE  POETS,  N^VIUS — THE  LEGEND 
AMONG  THE  HISTORIANS  AND  SCHOLIASTS,  CATO, 
VARRO — THE  LEGEND  AMONG  THE  ARTISTS — WHY 
WAS  IT  MORE  SPREAD  AMONG  THE  ROMANS  THAN 
AMONG  THE  GREEKS  ? 

Only  one  point  remains  to  be  cleared  up ;  but  it  is 
perhaps  the  most  obscure.  Can  we  ascertain  at  what 
moment  the  legend  of  ^neas  became  known  among  the 
Romans  ?  We  do  not  hope  to  attain  to  a  precise  date, 
as  may  well  be  imagined.  We  must  not  be  exacting, 
but  content  ourselves  with  little,  when  so  distant  an 
age  is  in  question. 

First  of  all,  it  is  indisputable  that  the  first  inter- 
course of  the  Eomans  with  the  Greeks  goes  back  very 
far.  It  is  no  longer  a  matter  of  doubt  that  they 
received  the  art  of  writing  from  them ;  for  in  the  most 
ancient  Latin  inscriptions  the  form  of  the  letters  is 
that  of  the  Eolo-Dorian  alphabet.  This  alphabet  was 
doubtless  communicated  to  them  by  one  of  the  Greek 
colonies  established  in  Southern  Italy  or  in  Sicily.  It 
probably  came  to  them  from  Cumea,  whose  vessels  did 
a  great  trade  along  the  Italian  coasts.  But  when  did 
they  begin  to  use  it  ?  When  the  ideas  of  Niebuhr 
upon  the  beginnings  of  Eoman  history  were  dominant, 


THE   LEGEND    OF   ^NEAS.  147 

it  was  customary  to  make  this  epoch  as  late  as  possible, 
in  order  to  leave  the  field  the  longer  free  for  the 
formation  of  primitive  epics,  and  it  was  even  asserted 
that  the  Eomans  did  not  learn  to  write  until  the  time  of 
the  Decemvirs.  These  are  ideas  which  have  now 
been  exploded.  It  is  certain  that  writing  was  known 
to  the  Eomans  at  a  very  early  date,  and  in  a  recent 
publication  M.  Louis  Havet  has  tried  to  show  that 
their  alphabet  was  fixed  before  the  time  of  the 
Tarquins.^  We  must  admit,  then,  that  the  Greeks 
frequented  the  markets  of  Eome  from  the  day  of  its 
foundation.  This  opinion,  a  prediction  of  philology, 
has  been  confirmed  by  the  archaeologist.  In  the 
excavations  made  on  the  Viminal,  tombs  were  reached 
under  what  is  called  the  Wall  of  Servius,  and 
which  must  consequently  be  more  ancient.  These 
tombs  contained,  among  other  objects,  Chalcidian 
vases,  which  doubtless  came  by  way  of  Cumea.  From 
the  moment  the  Greeks  knew  the  road  to  Eome,  they 

^  See  M.  L.  Havet's  opening  lecture  at  the  College  de  France,  7th 
December  1882.  The  consequences  of  the  fact  pointed  out  by  them  do 
not  lack  importance,  and  he  does  not  shrink  from  them.  After  estab- 
lishing the  fact  that  writing  was  known  in  the  time  of  the  Eoman  kings, 
he  adds  :  "  But,"  it  will  be  asked,  "  did  those  old  kings  really  exist  ? " 
And  why  not  ?  If  the  Eomans  could  write  at  that  time,  why  should 
they  not  have  transmitted  a  few  authentic  names  to  posterity  ?  It  is 
very  remarkable  that  with  regard  to  these  facts,  formerly  so  much 
contested,  French,  Italian,  and  even  German  criticism  seems  to  have 
become  conservative  again.  At  the  same  time  that  M.  L.  Havet's 
pamphlet  appeared,  M.  Gaston  Paris  published  in  the  Romania  a  very 
important  article  on  the  legend  of  Roncevaux.  This  article  ends  with 
the  following  words  :  "  While  following  up  these  studies  of  critical 
analysis,  now  only  in  their  beginning,  we  shall  become  more  and  more 
convinced  that  in  being  distant  and  anonymous  the  epic  is  not 
differently  circumstanced  than  other  births  of  human  poetic  activity  j 


148  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

brought  the  products  of  their  industry  thither,  and  with 
them  their  ideas,  their  civilization,  and  their  legends. 
But  must  we  believe  that  the  legend  of  ^neas  was 
already  among  them  ?  Upon  this  point  the  learned  are 
divided,  and  the  most  opposite  opinions  are  offered. 
While  some  believe  it  to  be  as  ancient  as  Eome  herself, 
others  will  not  admit  it  to  be  anterior  to  the  Punic 
Wars.     On  which  side  does  the  truth  seem  to  be  ? 

To  those  who  would  take  it  back  to  the  very 
beginning  of  Eome,  it  has  been  rightly  replied  that,  had 
it  existed  at  the  time  when  the  Eoman  religion  was 
formed,  it  would  hold  some  place  in  it.^  Denys  of 
Halicarnassus,  in  expounding  it,  says  "  that  it  is  con- 
firmed by  what  takes  place  in  the  sacrifices  and 
ceremonies  " ;  but  he  must  have  been  mistaken.  The 
most  ancient  festivals  of  Eome  are  known  to  us,  and 
Prof.  Mommsen  thinks  we  can  reconstruct  the  calendar 
of  Numa.  There  is  no  mention  of  ^neas  in  it.  He  is 
first  heard  of  in  history  in  connection  with  Pyrrhus. 

that  it  is  only  developed  by  a  series  of  individual  innovations,  doubtless 
marked  in  the  corners  of  their  respective  epochs  ;  and  which  have 
nothing  unconscious  or  popular  in  the  almost  mystic  sense  sometimes 
attached  to  the  word.  Everything  here,  as  elsewhere,  has  its  explana- 
tion, its  cause,  its  reason  to  be  and  to  cease."  Here  we"  are,  then,  very 
far  from  the  assertions  which  made  the  glory  of  Wolff,  Lachmann,  and 
Niebuhr.  It  is  curious  to  realise,  just  at  the  end  of  this  century,  that 
after  having  run  through  a  whole  cycle  of  seductive  hypotheses,  and 
of  audacious  destructions  and  reconstructions,  the  evolution  is  finished, 
and  brings  us  back  very  nearly  to  the  point  of  departure.  But  we 
return  to  it  with  more  exact  ideas,  and  with  a  clearer  view  of  the  past ; 
and  if  all  those  great  systems  which  reigned  for  a  few  years  were  only 
errors,  they  were  at  least  fertile  errors,  which  have  renewed  criticism 
and  history. 

■•  Antiq.  rom.,  I.  49, 


THE  LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  1-iO 

We  are  told  that  the  king  of  Epirus  was  induced  to 
declare  war  against  the  Eomans  by  the  memory  of  his 
ancestor  Achilles,  there  being  a  family  quarrel  between 
him  and  the  Trojans  of  Eonie,  which  he  desired  to 
settle.^  So  the  legend  existed  at  that  time,  and  a 
contemporary  historian,  TimiBus  of  Tauromenium,  tells 
it  nearly  in  the  same  way  that  it  is  known  to  us.  Is  it 
probable  that  it  was  quite  recent  at  this  moment,  or 
that  the  war  with  Pyrrhus  gave  rise  to  it  ?  I  find  it 
difficult  to  believe.  Prof.  Hild  is  right  in  saying  "  that 
a  belief  or  a  worship  is  never  implanted  all  at  once  by 
hasty  adoption  or  violent  annexation."  It  must  then 
have  been  working  its  way,  and  insinuating  itself  into 
Eome  for  some  time  past;  but  it  only  began  to 
assume  a  certain  authority  there  shortly  before  the  war 
with  Pyrrhus.  What  also  leads  me  to  the  same  con- 
clusion is,  that  about  this  time  I  see  it  accepted  in  an 
official  manner  by  the  Eoman  authorities.  When  a 
State  is  wise,  it  does  not  give  in  too  soon  to  contested 
novelties ;  and  in  order  that  a  sort  of  public  consecra- 
tion should  have  been  accorded  to  the  legend  of  ^neas 
at  Eome,  it  must  have  been  pretty  widely  spread  at  the 
time  and  accepted  by  many  people.  In  472,  according 
to  Prof.  Mommsen,  and,  according  to  Nissen,^  fifty 
years  later,  the  Acarnanians  being  engaged  in  a  struggle 
with  the  ^tolians,  asked  Eome  to  help  them.  Their 
ground   of   appeal  was  that   of  all   the  Greeks  their 


'  This  is  at  least  what  Pausanias  says,  although  his  sources  are 
not  known. 

^Nissen,  Zitr  Kritik  des  ^neassage  {Jahrb.  fur  class.  Phil.),  1865, 
p.  375,  et  seq. 


150  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE:  AND   VIRGIL. 

ancestors  alone  had  taken  no  part  in  the  Trojan  War. 
They  doubtless  thought  that  this  motive  would  suffice 
to  soften  the  Senate,  and  that  the  heirs  of  the  Trojans 
would  not  decline  to  pay  their  ancestors'  debt.     From 
that  time  texts  abound  to  prove  that  belief  in  a  Trojan 
origin  had  become  among  the  Eomans  a  maxim  of  State, 
alleged  without  hesitation,  even  in  diplomatic  docu- 
ments.    When,  after  the  disasters  of  the  Second  Punic 
War,  Kome  asked  the  inhabitants  of  Pessinonte  to  let 
them  have  the  statue  of  the  Mother  of  the  Gods  which 
was  to  restore  their  fortunes,  she    did  not  forget  to 
remind  them  that   her   ancestors  were  Phrygians  by 
birth,  and,  consequently,  their  countrymen.     A  little 
later,  in  treating  with  Antiochus,  king  of  Syria,  whom 
she  had  vanquished,  she  takes  care  to  stipulate  that  he 
shall  set  free  the  inhabitants  of  Ilion,  who  are  related 
_to  the  Eoman  people.     During  the  wars  in  Asia,  the 
generals  who  passed  by  the  ancient  town,  are  careful  to 
stop  there  and  make  sacrifices,     ^neas,  thenceforth, 
has  taken  his  place  among  the  ancestors  of  the  Eomans; 
he  figures  at  the  head  of  the  list,  and  public  honours 
are  rendered  to  him.    In  the  Forum  of  Pompeii,  along  a 
monument  which  ornaments  one  side  of  the  square,  four 
niches  are  distinguished,  which  used  to  contain  statues, 
now  destroyed.     iEneas  and  Eomulus  occupied  the  two 
first;    while  Signer  Fiorelli  supposes  the  two    others 
to  have  contained  Caesar  and  Augustus.     These  were 
the  four  founders  of  the  Eoman  State.     Some  fragments 
of  the  inscription  graven  below  the  image  of  ^neas 
still  remain.    They  recall  all  the  legend  in  a  few  words: 
the  flight  of  the  hero  carrying  with  him  his  gods  and 
his   father;   his   arrival  in   Italy;   the   foundation   of 


THE   LEGEND   OF   ^NEAg.  l5l 

Lavmium ;  his  miraculous  death  ;  and  his  apotheosis  as 
Jupiter  Indigos.^ 

Latin  poetry  also  takes  early  possession  of  ^neas. 
We  know  that  he  figured  in  the  first  orational  epic 
Eome  possessed.  When  the  rough  plebeian  Nsevius,  so 
ardent  for  the  glory  of  his  country,  undertook  to  sing 
the  First  Punic  War,  in  which  he  had  been  a  soldier,  he 
began  by  going  back  to  the  Trojans.  At  this  moment 
the  history  of  ^neas  is  enriched  by  a  new  incident  on 
which  Virgil  was  afterwards  to  shed  an  immortal 
brightness.  Nfevius  imagines  uiEneas  to  have  been 
driven  by  the  wind  from  Troy  to  Carthage,  where  he 
was  received  by  Dido.  He  was  not,  I  think,  the  first 
to  bring  together  these  representatives  of  two  races,  and 
this  is  how  they  come  to  be  connected.  On  the  western 
coast  of  Sicily,  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Eryx,  there 
rose  one  of  these  temples  of  Aphrodite  to  which  allusion 
has  already  been  made.  The  position  of  Eryx  between 
Africa,  Gaul,  Spain,  and  Italy,  made  it  one  of  the  spots 
where  merchants  of  all  countries  came  together.  The 
Phoenician  was  constantly  meeting  the  Greek  there. 
Each  of  the  two  peoples  brought  with  it  its  national 
traditions,  and  in  their  reciprocal  communications,  when 
one  told  the  story  of  ^neas,  the  other  replied  with  that 
of  Dido.  And  so  by  dint  of  talking  about  them,  they 
came  to  join  them  in  the  same  legend.  Allied  together 
so   long   as   their   nations   were   united,  they   became 

^  It  is  true  that  among  the  paintings  at  Pompeii  there  exists  one 
which  is  a  kind  of  parody  of  the  oflRcial  legend.  It  represents  a 
monkey,  clad  in  a  coat  of  mail,  carrying  an  old  monkey  on  his  shoulders 
and  dragging  a  young  monkey  by  the  hand.  Mneas,  Anchises, 
and  Ascanius  are  meant. 


152  TH15  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

mortal  enemies  as  soon  as  the  war  broke  out  between 
Carthage  and  Eome.  Then  the  hatred  of  the  children 
is  made  to  go  back  to  that  of  the  ancestors,  and  the 
meeting  of  the  queen  of  Carthage  with  the  Trojan  hero 
takes  tragic  colours.  Jt  is  doubtless  ISTsevius  who  gave 
this  new  character  to  the  ancient  legend.  To  account 
for  the  animosity  of  the  two  races,  he  supposes  that 
they  had  ancient  grudges  to  avenge,  and  that  their 
enmity  began  with  their  very  existence.  Ennius  also 
thinks  he  must  take  up  Eoman  history  at  the  fall  of 
Troy,  as  is  seen  in  the  short  fragments  of  the  First  Book 
of  his  poem  which  remain  to  us.  We  have  especially 
the  verse  in  which  he  begins  to  relate  the  adventures 
of  ^neas : 

^\Giim  veter  occuhuit  Priamus  sub  marie  Pelasgo." 

The  remainder  took  up  very  little  place,  and  half  a 
Book  sufficed  Ennius  for  the  narration  of  what  occupies 
twelve  in  Virgil.  The  malicious  said  that  while  laugh- 
ing at  his  predecessor  Ntevius,  whom  he  accused  of 
writing  in  a  barbarous  rhythm  and  having  no  care  for 
elegance,  he  avoided  repeating  what  the  rough  poet 
had  done,  in  order  not  to  clash  with  him,  and  that  he 
was  like  certain  heroes  of  Homer,  who  shout  all  kinds 
of  nonsense  to  their  enemy,  and  let  fly  an  arrow  or  two 
from  afar,  but  withdraw  as  soon  as  he  advances.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  it  is  curious  to  remark  that  the  first 
time  the  Latin  Muse  tackles  the  epic,  she  goes  straight 
to  the  subject  which  Virgil  was  to  handle.  Is  it  not  to 
the  point  here  to  recall  Sainte  Beuve's  remark  with 
reference  to  Homer  ?  He  says  there  was  a  sort  of 
unconscious  conspiracy  among  all  these  ancient  writers 


THE   LEGEND   OF   ^NEAS.  153 

to    prepare    the    matter    on   which    their    illustrious 
successor  was  afterwards  to  work. 

From  the  hands  of  the  poets  the  legend  fell  into  that 
of  the  chroniclers  and  scholiasts.     It  had  no  reason  to 
rejoice   thereat.      The   moment  that  the  learned  seize 
upon  these  old  legends,  and  undertake  to  make  them 
clearer  and  wiser,  is  a  crisis  for  them.     The  learned  are 
not  light-handed.     They  want  everything  to  be  rational 
and  sensible,  which  is  surely  a  most  legitimate  desire ; 
yet,  somehow  or  other,  from  the  moment  you  try  to  put 
reason  into  popular  fables,  and  take  too  much  trouble 
to  make  them  probable,  they  become  ridiculous.     Virgil 
had  afterwards  much  ado  to  restore  to  his  hero    the 
poetic   tinge   of  which   his   prolonged  sojourn  among 
scholiasts   and   chroniclers   had   deprived    him.      Yet 
they  rendered  him  a  signal  service,  since  their  minute 
researches  and  learned  labours  contributed  to  establish 
the  authority  of  the  legend  more  solidly.     So  long  as  it 
was  only  found  in  the  verses  of  the  poets,  it  might  be 
suspected  of  having  no  other  foundation   than  those 
thousand  Greek  fables  which  no  one  took  in  earnest. 
But  from  the  moment  serious  people,  who  did  not  make 
it  their  trade  to  amuse  the  public,  took  the  trouble  to 
busy  themselves  with  it,  in  books  where  they  studied 
the  laws  and  religion  of  their  country,  it  seemed  to 
deserve  more  confidence.     Cato,  a  consul,  a  censor,  an 
enemy  of  the  Greeks,  related  it  without  hesitation  in  all 
its  details,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  give,  respecting  the 
exact  extent  of  the  territory  ceded  by  Turnus  to  the 
Trojans,  and  the  different  struggles  which  ^neas  and 
Ascanius  sustained  against  Turnus,  details  as  precise  as 
if  contemporary  events  had  been  in  question.     Varro, 


154  THE  COtJNTllY  Ot*  HORACE  ANt)  VIRGlL 

"  the  most  learned  of  the  Eomans,"  who  was  a  man  of 
war  as  well  as  a  scholar,  and  commanded  the  fleet 
of  the  Adriatic  while  Pompey  was  tracking  the  pirates, 
profited  by  a  little  leisure  to  follow  up  .^neas,  do  his 
journeys  over  again,  and  visit  with  his  galleys  the 
different  ports  at  which  he  had  touched.  He  was  so 
convinced  of  the  reality  of  his  adventures  that  he 
thought  he  found  indisputable  traces  of  his  sojourn 
everywhere.  We  see  in  the  fragments  of  his  works 
still  extant  that  he  speaks  of  these  distant  events  in  a 
tone  of  extraordinary  assurance.  "Is  it  not  certain," 
he  says,  "  that  the  Arcadians,  under  the  leadership  of 
Evander,  came  into  Italy,  and  settled  on  the  Palatine  ? "  ^ 
It  seems  really  a  crime  to  doubt  it. 

I  know  that  to  these  reasons,  which  induced  us  to 
believe  that  the  legend  was  then  very  widely  spread  and 
generally  believed  in,  it  has  been  objected  that  it  was 
utterly  unknown  to  Eoman  Art.  How  is  it  possible  to 
admit  that,  being  so  popular  as  is  asserted,  it  so  rarely 
tempted  sculptors  and  painters  ?  It  is  certain  that  no 
fresco  or  bas-relief  of  any  importance  is  known  anterior 
to  the  Empire,  having  the  history  of  ^neas  for  its 
subject.  M.  Brunn  thought  he  had  found  one  on  one 
of  those  metal  coffers  called  cists,  which  come  to  us 
from  the  tombs  of  Praeneste.  He  fancied  that  he 
recognised  on  one  of  the  sides  the  battles  of  the  Eutuli 
and  the  Trojans,  while  on  the  plaque  in  the  cover  he 
saw  xEneas  presenting  the  old  Latin  king  with  the  spoils 
of  Turnus  whom  he  has  just  killed.  Beside  him  is 
Lavinia,  who  is  about  to  be  delivered  to  her  husband, 

1  Severus,  in  ^n.,  VIII.  51. 


THE   LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  155 

while  Amata,  her  mother,  retires,  furious,  in  order  not 
to  witness  this  marriage.^  This  is  quite  the  subject  of 
the  ^neidy  and,  as  M.  Brunn  supposes  this  work  of  art 
to  be  anterior  to  the  First  Punic  War,  he  admits  that  the 
legend  was  then  fixed  in  its  most  minute  details,  and 
that  Virgil  only  translated  faithfully  the  popular  fables 
which  existed  more"  than  two  centuries  before  his  time. 
Unfortunately,  M.  Brunn's  explanation  is  now  strongly 
contested,  and  it  is  questioned  whether  the  coffer  does 
not  belong  to  a  more  recent  epoch,  or  whether  the 
subject  represented  is  really  what  M.  Brunn  imagines 
it  to  be.  But  on  the  other  hand,  since  the  time  when 
M.  Brunn,  erroneously  or  not,  placed  the  adventures  of 
^neas  on  the  cista  2^rcenestina,  they  have  been  found, 
and  this  time  indubitably,  in  a  Eoman  tomb.  In  1875 
excavations  were  undertaken  by  an  Italian  Society  at 
the  extremity  of  the  Esquiline,  in  the  space  extending 
between  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  and  the  little  monument 
known  as  the  Temple  of  Minerva  Medica.  Here  lay 
one  of  the  important  roads  of  Eome — that  leading  to 
PrcTneste.  Along  the  Eoman  roads  one  is  always  sure 
to  find  tombs.  One  of  those  excavated  contained 
frescoes  which  had  unfortunately  suffered  much  when, 
in  the  third  century,  the  custom  of  burying  the  dead 
having  replaced  that  of  burning  them,  alterations  were 
made  to  the  tomb  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  this  new 
practice.  However,  enough  remains  of  the  paintings 
to  enable  one  to  grasp  their  subject  quite  clearly.  It  is 
the  early  history  of  Eome  from  the  arrival  of  ^neas 
in  Italy.     We  first  see  him  founding  Lavinium   and 

^  A7in .  de  Vinst.  de  corresp.  arch.,  1864,  p.  356,  et  seq. 


156  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HOUACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

fighting  Turnus.  In  tlie  pictures,  which  follow  each 
other  without  being  separated,  like  those  on  the  column 
of  Trajan,  all  the  phases  of  the  great  battle  fought  on 
the  banks  of  the  Numicius  can  be  followed.  Then 
comes  the  foundation  of  Alba  by  Ascanius,  and  lastly, 
the  story  of  Ehea  Silvia  and  the  twins.^  What  adds 
value  to  these  paintings  is  that  they  must  be  con- 
temporary with  Virgil's  works,  and  as  they  do  not 
reproduce  exactly  the  tradition  followed  by  him,  and 
were  probably  not  executed  under  his  influence,  they 
show  how  the  events  sung  by  the  poet  were  understood 
by  people  round  about  him.  But  whatever  importance 
may  be  attached  to  them,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
they  are  the  only  work  of  art  of  any  value  anterior  to 
the  jEneid  treating  of  ^neas  and  Lavinium ;  and  it 
must  therefore  be  owned  that  down  to  the  time  of 
Virgil,  the  journeys  of  the  Trojan  hero,  which  had 
inspired  so  many  poets,  had  busied  sculptors  and 
painters  but  little. 

Does  this  justify  us  in  stating  that  the  legend 
was  but  little  known  at  that  time  ?  I  do  not  think 
so.  Let  us  remember  that  the  arts  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  Greeks,  and  that  the  Greeks  only  liked  to  busy 
themselves  with  themselves.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  they  hardly  ever  reproduced  events  of  Eoman 
history  in  bas-reliefs  or  frescoes.  It  is  true  that  having 
created  the  ^nean  legend,  as  we  have  seen,  they  might 
have  been  expected  to  feel  more  taste  for  the  work ;  but 

^This  monument  was  first  described  by  M.  Brizio  in  his  work 
entitled  Pitturc  e  sepolcri  scoperti  sulV  Esquilino.  The  subject  was  treated 
afresh  by  M.  Robert  in  the  Annales  de  VInstitut  acheologique  de  Eome 
(1878,  p.  234,  et  seq.).     I  have  followed  M.  Robert's  explanations. 


THE   LEGEND    OF   iENEAS.  157 

unfortunately  this  legend  had  come  into  existence  but 
recently,  when  their  imagination  was  beginning  to  tire 
of  reproducing  fables.  Besides,  it  is  obviously  less  rich 
in  poetic  details,  more  sombre  and  dry  than  others. 
Nor  had  it  enjoyed  the  good  fortune  to  please  a  great 
poet,  and  be  transfigured  in  his  song.  These  were 
depreciating  circumstances  which  little  recommended 
it  to  the  choice  of  artists.  In  conclusion,  they  had  a 
special  reason  for  forsaking  it,  on  which  I  must  for  a 
moment  dwell ;  because  in  teaching  us  why  it  was 
neglected  by  the  Greeks,  it  at  the  same  time  shows  us 
one  of  the  reasons,  and  perhaps  the  strongest,  which 
attracted  the  Eomans  to  it. 

When  the  legend  of  ^neas  began  to  spread  among 
the  Greeks,  Rome,  too  feeble  as  yet  to  cause  them  un- 
easiness, was  yet  powerful  enough  to  inspire  them  with 
a  desire  to  attach  her  in  some  way  or  other  to  their 
country,  and  thus  take  part  in  her  glory.  A  century 
later  all  was  changed.  She  had  subdued  Greece,  she 
had  just  invaded  the  East,  and  she  openly  coveted  tt  ? 
empire  of  the  world.  The  Greeks,  vanquished  and 
humiliated,  no  longer  felt  the  same  alacrity  to  adorn 
with  poetic  fables  the  origin  of  a  people  who 
oppressed  them.  This  legend — although  their  own 
work — seemed  to  give  their  rivals  a  too  advantageous 
past.  They  began  by  speaking  less  and  less  of  it,  and 
ended  by  forgetting  it.  Denys  of  Halicarnassus  states 
that  in  his  time  there  was  hardly  anybody  left  in 
Greece  to  whom  it  was  known.  Its  place  had  been 
taken  by  quite  contrary  fables.  There  existed  then,  at 
the  courts  of  the  little  Asiatic  princes  and  of  the  bar- 
barian kings,  quite  a  school  of  historians  who  made  it 


158  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

their  business  to  say  as  much  ill  as  possible  of  the 
Eomans,  and  as  much  good  as  possible  of  their  enemies. 
They  naturally  shared  the  fate  of  those  whose  cause 
they  championed,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  con- 
queror whom  they  insulted  should  not  have  been  soli- 
citous to  preserve  their  works.  We  possess  Polybius, 
who  wrote  the  history  of  the  Punic  Wars  in  the  Eoman 
interest;  but  we  scarcely  know  the  name  of  that 
Philinus  of  Agrigentum  who  extolled  the  Carthaginians, 
and  turned  everything  to  their  glory.  The  usual  tactics 
of  all  these  enemies  of  Eome  consisted  in  ridiculing 
the .  baseness  of  her  origin.  They  said  that  she 
had  been  an  asylum  for  bandits ;  that  she  owed  her 
birth  to  wretches,  vagabonds,  and  slaves.  These  cal- 
umnies made  Halicarnassus  indignant,  and  he  under- 
took to  reply  to  them  by  writing  his  Loman  Antiquities. 
In  order  to  show  their  falseness  and  victoriously  refute 
them,  he  related  the  legend  of  ^neas  in  all  its  details. 
Addressing  his  countrymen  at  the  commencement  of 
his  book,  he  says :  "  Trust  not  at  all  those  lies  (with 
regard  to  the  foundation  of  Eome) ;  they  only  spread 
fables.  I  will,  show  you  that  those  who  founded  her 
were  not  vagabonds  snatched  by  chance  from  among 
the  most  contemptible  nations.  They  were  Trojans, 
following  a  famous  chief,  whose  deeds  were  sung  by 
Homer.  Or  rather,  since  the  Trojans  are  of  the  same 
origin  as  we,  they  were  Greeks."  ^ 

Denys  well  knew  that  this  conclusion  was  quite  to 
the  taste  of  the  Eomans,  and  that  it  flattered  the  secret 

1  All  these  ideas  are  developed  in  the  Preface  to  the  liovian  Anti- 
quities of  Denys  of  Halicarnassus, 


THE  LEGEND  OF  iENEAS.  159 

instincts  of  their  vanity.     They  had  long  borne  without 
loss  of  temper  the  stigma  of  "  barbarians,"  which  the 
Greeks  gave  to  all  who  were  not  of  their  race.     When 
they    better    understood    the    worth    of    letters    and 
of  arts,  they  disliked  to  be  put  thus  summarily  and 
with  a  word  beyond  the  pale  of  civilization.      They 
wished  to  re-enter  humanity,  and  in  some  way  connect 
themselves  with  Greece,  if  only  by  their  distant  origin. 
The  legend  of  ^neas  gave  them  the  means,  and  they 
grasped  it  with  alacrity.     The  great  lords  delighted  to 
imagine  themselves  descended  from  the  most  illustrious 
companions  of  ^neas;  and  there  was  even  a  certain  num- 
ber of  families  for  whom  this  origin  was  not  contested. 
These  were  called  "  Trojan  families  ";  and  Varro,  desirous 
to  please  everybody,  wrote  a  book  in  support  of  their 
chimerical  genealogies.     Simple  citizens  could  not  have 
such  exalted  pretensions ;  yet  though  they  did  not  dare 
to  claim  the  honour  of  having  Trojan  chiefs  among  their 
ancestors,  they  were  still  proud  to  be  descended  from 
common  soldiers.     In  the  famous  prediction  announc- 
ing  the   disaster   of   Cannse,  the    soothsayer  Marcius, 
addressing    the    Eomans,    called    them    "  children    of 
Troy"    {Trojugena   Bomance)}       In  giving  them  this 
name  he  evidently  meant  to   please  them.      A  little 
later   the    poet   Attius,   having   composed   a   national 
piece  on  the  devotion  of  Decius,  of  which  the  Eomans 
were   so   proud,    entitled    it    The   Sons   of  ^neas   or 
Decius  {jEneadce  sive  Decius).     Writers  of  tragedy  or 
comedy  generally  seek  to  give  to  their  works   titles 
attractive  to  the  public.     Attius,  then,  supposed  that 

1  Titus  Liviiis,  XXV.  12. 


160  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

the  Komans  would  like  to  hear  themselves  called  sons 
of  ^neas.  And  thus  the  general  vanity  became  a 
factor  in  the  success  of  the  old  legend. 


IV. 

WHAT  REASON  HAD  VIRGIL  TO  CHOOSE  THE  LEGEND  OF 
.^NEAS  FOR  THE  SUBJECT  OF  HIS  POEM  ? — THE  HIS- 
TORICAL EPIC  AND  THE  MYTHOLOGICAL  EPIC — THE 
jENEID  is  BOTH  A  MYTHOLOGICAL  AND  AN  HIS- 
TORICAL EPIC — WHY  DID  VIRGIL  PREFER  iENEAS  TO 
ROMULUS  ?  —  IN  WHAT  SENSE  MAY  THE  MNEID  BE 
SAID  TO  HAVE  BEEN  POPULAR  ? 

We  at  length  bid  adieu  to  darkness  and  uncertainties, 
and  emerge  into  full  light:  we  have  reached  Virgil. 
After  having  sought  to  discover  whence  the  legend  of 
^neas  came,  what  were  the  elements  that  formed  it, 
and  why  the  Eomans  received  it  so  favourably,  it  re- 
mains for  us  to  ascertain  the  reasons  that  may  have 
induced  Virgil  to  make  it  the  subject  of  his  poem. 

We  run  no  risk  of  committing  an  error  when  we 
assert  that  he  did  not  do  so  without  reason,  and  that, 
in  the  conception  of  his  works,  he  left  nothing  to 
chance.  Voltaire  relates  that  when,  at  the  age  of 
twenty,  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  compose  an  epic, 
he  scarcely  knew  what  an  epic  was.  Virgil  would  not 
have  displayed  such  levity.  He  was  not  one  of  those 
poets  of  impulse  of  whom  Plato  tells  us  that  they  do 
not  know  what  they  are  about.  He  meditated  and 
reflected  long  before  writing.  He  was  a  sad  and  timid 
man,    and   had   not    a   sufficiently    good    opinion  of 


THE   LEGEND   OF   iENEAS.  161 

himself  to  think  he  was  capable  of  improvising 
masterpieces.  All  his  works  bear  traces  of  patient 
labour  and  obstinate  effort.  The  wonder  is  that  in  his 
case  toil  never  hampered  inspiration. 

We  may  be  certain  that  after  deciding  to  write  an 
epic  poem,  he  first  of  all  asked  himself  what  the  subject 
of  this  poem  was  to  be.      The  reply  to  this  question 
would  be  different,  according  to   the  school  the  poet 
belonged  to.     There  were  two  at  the  time  disputing 
and  dividing  public  suffrage.     The  one  clung  to  the 
past,  and  wished  simply  to  continue  it.     It  was  com- 
posed of  admirers  of  the  old  Latin  poets,  and  counted 
especially  among  its  ranks  those  wise  and  ripened  minds 
to  whom  innovations  are  unpleasing.     The  other  had 
chosen  new  models,  and  professed  to  rejuvenate  poetry 
by  imitating  the  younger  poets.     As  always  happens, 
these  had  the  young  people  and  the  women  on  their 
side.     Each  of  the  two  schools  looked  upon  the  epic 
differently.     The  old  school  was  especially  partial  to 
the  historical  poem — that  is  to  say,  the  poem  which 
relates  the  deeds  of   our  ancestors ;  and  it  must   be 
owned   that   its    taste     was   in   conformity   with   the 
peculiar  genius  and   natural  aptitudes  of  the  Eoman 
race.     This  race  was,  above  all,  military  and  practical, 
and  only  loved  literature  on  condition  of  its  containing 
lessons  for  the  conduct  of  life.     The  ideal  and  fanciful, 
by  which   the  Greeks   were   moved,  left  it  somewhat 
indifferent.     It   had   little   inclination   for   legends   in 
which    imagination    has    so    great   a   place,   and    the 
poetry  of   its   preference  was   that   dealing   with  real 
facts  and  personages.      So   the   Latin  poets,  as  soon 
as   their   wings    had    strength   to   bear   them,   turned 

L 


162  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORA.CE  AND   VIRGIL. 

in    that    direction.      N?evius    sings    the    First   Punic 
War ;  while  Ennins,  giving  his  work  the  very  Eoman 
title  of  the  Annalcs,  relates  all  the  history  of  Home, 
emphasizing  the  events  he  has  himself  seen,  and  can 
speak  of  as  a  witness.     The  success  of  his  work  was 
very   marked.      Eome   recognises    herself,   and   for   a 
century  epic-makers  followed  in  his  tracks.     Even  in 
Virgil's  time,  and  round  about  him,  poems  were  com- 
posed on  the  defeat  of  Vercingetorix  and  the  death  of 
Ca3sar.     Lucretius,  the  greatest  poet  of  the  age,  also 
holds  to  the  author  of  the  Annales,  and  although  he 
did  not  write  an  epic  tale,  he  proclaims  himself  the 
disciple  of  Ennius,  and  congratulates  him  on  having 
broudit  from  Helicon  "a  crown  whose  laurel  leaves 
shall  never  fade."     The  other  school  sought  its  inspira- 
tions among  the  Alexandrian  poets.     In  spite  of  the 
reputation  they  enjoyed  in  the  Greek  world,  Eome  had 
remained  long  without  knowing  and   applying   them. 
She  liked  to  keep  to  the  classic  epoch ;  but  when  her 
conquests  had  brought  her  into  more  frequent  contact 
with  Asia,  her  generals,  her  proconsuls,  her  merchants, 
who   frequently   visited    the    large   towns,   read  these 
poets  with  whom  everybody  around  them  busied  them- 
selves,  and   were   charmed.      They   did    not    find    it 
difficult  to  communicate  their  feelings  to  their  friends  ; 
for  there  was  then  at  Eome  a  polite  and  refined  society 
which  was  beginning  to  tire  a  little  of  the  old  writers 
and  to  seek  new  objects  for  admiration.     These  grace- 
ful and  delicate  works,  where  care  for  form  is  pushed 
so  far;    where   so   many  learned   allusions,   so   many 
surprises  of  expression  and  imagery  are  found  ;  where 
the  mode  of  speech  is  so  ingenious  that  it  stimulates 


THE  LEGEND   OF  .ENEAS.  163 

the  mind  and  makes  it  pleased  with  itself  when 
it  has  grasped  its  refinements,  were  well  made  to 
captivate.  Naturally,  after  admiring,  Rome  imitated. 
The  first  to  write  verses  in  the  Alexandrian  style 
were  at  the  same  time  young  men  of  talent  and  heroes 
of  fashion — Licinius  Calvus,  Cornelius  G alius,  and 
above  all,  Catullus,  the  greatest  among  them.  They 
obtained  much  success.  One  of  their  usual  methods 
was  the  frequent  employment  of  mythology.  Some  were 
content  to  make  use  of  it  in  short  allusions  in  their 
elegies,  while  others  spread  it  out  in  epic  poems.  The 
histories  of  the  gods  and  the  heroes,  the  adventures  of 
Hercules  and  Theseus,  the  war  of  Thebes  or  that  of 
Troy,  the  conquest  of  the  Golden  Fleece,  furnished 
them  in  abundance  epic  subjects,  which  they  preferred 
to  all  others. 

Between  these  two  schools  Virgil  had  to  choose. 
Each  had  its  merits  and  its  advantages.  The  historical 
poem,  preferred  by  the  old  school,  most  pleased 
the  greater  number,  and  had  the  better  chance  of 
becoming  popular.  Eome  was  always  proud  of  her 
past,  and  she  lent  a  willing  ear  to  those  who  celebrated 
her  glory.  But  this  style  also  presents  great  diffi- 
culties of  execution.  It  is  always  awkward  for  Poetry 
to  have  to  compete  with  History.  If  she  reproduces 
facts  exactly  as  they  have  happened,  she  is  accused 
of  sinking  into  dryness,  and  being  nothing  but  a 
chronicle ;  if  she  attempts  to  mingle  a  little  fiction 
with  it,  serious  people  find  that  the  truth  prejudices 
the  fable,  while  the  fable  discredits  the  truth ;  that 
one  does  not  know  on  what  ground  one  is  walking, 
and  that  this  uncertainty  spoils  aU  the  pleasure  of  the 


164  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND    VIRGIL. 

work.  The  mythological  epic  is  not  exposed  to  this 
danger.  All  in  it  is  of  the  same  nature,  and  from 
the  first  verse  it  introduces  the  reader  into  a  world 
of  fancy  and  invention  which  he  leaves  no  more. 
The  genre  once  accepted,  the  mind  is  at  rest,  and 
does  not  experience  the  unpleasantness  of  being  hauled 
backwards  and  forwards  between  fiction  and  reality. 
It  is  a  kind  of  dream,  to  which  it  can  confidently 
abandon  itself;  and  it  is  at  least  sure  of  following  it 
to  the  end  without  any  rough  incident  coming  to 
dissipate  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  public  to 
which  this  kind  of  poetry  appeals  is  limited,  since 
it  does  not  possess  what  attracts  the  crowd.  In  order 
to  understand  it  one  must  have  the  delicacy  of  an 
artist  and  the  learning  of  a  scholar.  Above  all,  at 
Eome,  where  artists  and  learned  men  were  rare,  it 
would  have  to  resign  itself  to  the  indifference  of 
"the  profane  vulgar,"  and  be  the  charm  of  a  few 
refined  natures.  Virgil  did  not  servilely  adhere  to  any 
school,  and  in  this  he  shows  his  originality ;  his  taste, 
broad  and  free,  sought  its  inspirations  everywhere. 
He  began  by  a  liking  for  Theocritus,  an  Alexandrian, 
while  in  his  last  work  he  so  closely  imitated  the 
ancients  that  Seneca  calls  him  an  Ennianist  down- 
right, which  in  his  mouth  is  a  grave  reproach.  In 
order  to  create  the  language,  at  once  so  firm  and 
supple,  which  he  used  with  such  admirable  effect,  he 
did  not  scruple  to  join  together  the  two  great  repre- 
sentatives of  the  opposed  schools,  Lucretius  and 
Catullus.  From  the  one  he  borrowed  more  especially 
the  vivacity  of  his  turns,  and  the  energy  and  brilliancy 
of  his  expressions,  while  from  the  other  he  took  his 


THE   LEGEND   OF  ^NEAS.  165 

neater  phrasing,  and  his  easier,  more  flowing  rhythm. 
From  this  combination  arose  that  marvellous  poetic 
language  which  Eome  spoke  without  much  change 
until  the  end  of  the  Empire. 

The  same  mind  is  found  again  in  Virgil's  choice  of 
a  subject.  It  is  of  a  kind  to  satisfy  everbody,  and 
holds  a  middle  place  between  the  historical  and  the 
mythological  epic.  It  has  been  supposed,  with 
sufficient  probability,  that  he  hesitated  some  time 
before  deciding.  We  know  that  when  he  finished  his 
Georgics,  he  read  them  to  the  Emperor  in  the  retreat  at 
Atella,  whither  Augustus  had  gone  to  take  a  little  rest 
and  nurse  his  throat  complaint.  Was  it  on  this 
occasion  that  he  composed  the  brilliant  prologue  with 
which  the  Third  Book  opens  ?  It  is  natural  to  believe 
so.  In  this  prologue  he  announces  the  ^neid ;  but  it 
has  obviously  not  yet  taken  in  his  mind  its  definitive 
form.  At  this  moment  he  seems  quite  disgusted  with 
mythology.  The  young  Eoman  poets  had  made  such 
an  abuse  of  it  that  in  a  few  years  it  had  lost  all  its 
freshness.  "  Who  does  not  know,"  says  Virgil,  "  pitiless 
Eurystheus  and  execrable  Busiris  ?  Who  has  not 
celebrated  young  Hylas,  and  Delos,  dear  to  Latona,  and 
Hippodamia,  and  Pelops,  the  fiery  rider  with  his  ivory 
shoulder?"  All  these  subjects,  fitted  to  please  idle 
minds,  seem  to  him  exhausted  {omnia  jam  vidgata). 
He  desires  to  w^alk  far  from  the  crowd,  and  try  new 
roads  that  will  lead  to  glory.  There  are  moments 
when,  fashion  having  run  for  some  time  in  a  different 
direction,  the  old  becomes  new  again.  It  would  seem 
then,  that  Virgil  intended  to  return  to  the  tradition  of 
the  old  Latin  poets,  and  compose  an  entirely  historical 


166     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

epic.     In  fact,  he  announces  to  Augustus  that  he  is 
about  to  sing  his  combats : 

"  Mox  tamen  ardentes  accingar  dicere  pugnas 
Ccesaris" 

He  fortunately  changed  his  mind.  In  taking  for  his 
subject  the  wars  against  Brutus  and  Antony,  he  would 
have  found  himself  contending  with  the  difficulties 
which  Lucian,  in  spite  of  his  genius,  failed  to  overcome. 
He  did  well  to  go  back  further,  to  the  very  beginnings 
of  Eome.  His  poem  has  not  the  less  remained 
thoroughly  historical,  not  only  because  of  the  constant 
allusions  made  to  historical  events  and  personages,  but 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  subject,  which  is  the 
glorification  of  Eome,  and  from  the  grave  and  sustained 
tone  of  the  narrative.  And  yet  it  is  mythological  too, 
since  gods  and  goddesses  are  the  principal  actors  in  the 
drama,  and  Olympus  and  the  earth  are  spoken  of  in  the 
same  breath.  By  placing  his  fable  in  an  epoch  when 
legend  and  history  are  confounded  together,  he  has 
suppressed  their  antagonism,  and  has  thus  been  able  to 
combine  the  advantages  of  both  schools  without 
incurring  their  disadvantages. 

But  may  it  not  be  objected  that  he  went  back  too 
far  ?  It  may  appear  that,  since  he  wished  to  glorify 
Eome  in  her  foundation,  it  was  not  ^neas  he  should 
have  chosen.  ^Eneas  only  founded  Lavinium,  and  is 
for  the  Eomans  but  a  very  distant  ancestor.  The 
ancient  chroniclers  made  him  the  father  or  the  grand- 
father of  Eomulus,  which  brought  him  near  enough  to 
the  birth  of  Eome ;  but  later  on,  in  order  somehow  or 
other  to  bring  the  legend  into  harmony  with  chronology, 


THE  LEGEND   OF  iENEAS.  167 

it  was  found  necessary  to  intercalate  between  them  the 
interminable  series  of  Alban  kings.  It  is  indeed 
strange  that  a  poet  who  desired  to  celebrate  Eome 
should  have  chosen  an  epoch  when  it  did  not  yet  exist, 
and  a  hero  who  lived  more  than  four  hundred  years 
ere  its  foundation.  Virgil  would  have  apparently  done 
better  to  stop  at  Eomulus,  for  he  would  have  found 
himself  in  the  very  heart  of  his  subject.  Eomulus  was 
then  much  more  popular  than  ^neas.  Everybody 
knew  his  name ;  on  the  Palatine,  the  cabin  where  he 
lived  was  shown ;  and  the  little  grotto,  shaded  by  a  fig- 
tree,  where  it  is  said  the  wolf  had  nursed  him,  was 
an  object  of  devotion.  Poetry  had  seized  on  these 
relics  at  a  very  early  date,  and  in  singing  them  had 
lent  them  splendour  and  force.  The  passages  of  the 
First  Book  of  the  Annales  of  Ennius,  where  he  relates 
the  dream  of  the  vestal,  the  birth  of  the  son  of  Mars,  and 
his  struggle  with  Eemus,  were  in  the  memories  of  every 
educated  Eoman ;  and  all  repeated  with  emotion  those 
beautiful  lines,  at  once  so  strong  and  tender,  express- 
ing the  gratitude  of  all  the  Eomans  to  him  who  gave 
their  city  its  life  : — 

"  0  Romule,  Romiile  die 
Qualem  te  fatrice  custodem  di  genuerunt  I 
0  pater,  0  genitor,  0  sanguen  dis  oriundum  ! " 

Nevertheless  Virgil  preferred  ^neas  to  Eomulus, 
and  he  had  many  reasons  for  doing  so.  One  of  the 
chief  was  certainly  a  desire  to  please  the  Emperor. 
Among  all  the  families  who  boasted  of  a  Trojan  origin, 
the  Ciiesars  held  the  first  place.  While  the  Memmii,  the 
Sergii,  and  the  Cluentii  were  content  to  have  for 
ancestors    lieutenants    of    ^neas,   the   Ca?sars   boldly 


168  THE   COUXTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

connected  themselves  with  ^neas  himself,  and 
claimed  descent  from  his  son  lulus.  In  singing  the 
father  of  the  Eomans,  Virgil  celebrated  the  ancestor  of 
the  Julii.  This  was  a  means  of  giving  the  Emperor's 
power  an  appearance  of  legitimacy,  and  of  making  him, 
across  the  centuries,  the  natural  heir  of  the  kings  of 
Eome.  He  thought  then  to  serve  his  country,  while 
paying  to  the  prince  his  debt  of  personal  gratitude. 
At  the  same  time  he  fulfilled  the  promise  he  had  made 
him  in  the  Georgics,  to  raise  him  an  immortal 
monument.  It  was,  of  course,  no  longer  an  historical 
poem  devoted  to  a  recital  of  the  Emperor's  exploits ; 
but  he  was  easily  recognised  under  the  features  of  the 
chief  of  his  race.  The  glory  of  the  ancestor  illumined 
the  descendant,  and  although  the  name  of  ^Eneas  was 
inscribed  on  the  pediment  of  the  building,  it  might  be 
said  that  Augustus  was  its  centre,  and  that,  in  reality, 
he  occupied  it  all : 

"  Li  medio  niihi  Gcesar  erit,  templumque  tenehit !  " 

Virgil  had  yet  another  reason  for  preferring  -^neas  to 
Eomulus  and  the  others,  which  must  have  seemed  to 
him  important,  ^neas  already  figures  in  the  Iliad, 
and  his  name  recalls  both  the  battle  in  which  he  took 
part  and  the  warriors  whom  he  knew.  To  speak  of 
him,  then,  was  a  natural  occasion  to  multiply  allusions 
to  the  Homeric  poems  and  re-animate  the  heroes  of  the 
Trojan  War.  This  is  a  pleasure  which  Virgil  indulges 
in  as  much  as  he  can.  Although  he  knows  the  danger 
there  is  of  provoking  disadvantageous  comparisons,  he 
exposes  himself  to  it  at  every  moment.  He  seeks 
every  means  to  connect  his  poem  with  that  of  Homer ; 


THE   LEGEND   OF   ^NEAS.  169 

he  imitates  the  chief  incidents,  and  causes  the  person- 
ages to  live  again.  Hector  is  re-born  in  the  words  of 
Andromache;  Diomedes  is  found  again  in  Southern 
Italy,  and  does  not  want  much  pressing  in  order  to 
talk  of  his  old  deeds ;  Ulysses  is  traced  in  the 
enchanted  palace  of  Circe,  and  in  the  isle  of  the 
Cyclops,  while  Hecuba,  Helen,  and  Priam  are  seen 
once  more  during  the  last  night  of  Ilium.  For  Virgil, 
as  for  us.  Homer  was  not  only  a  great  epic  poet ;  he 
was  the  Epos  personified.  So  he  must  have  deemed 
himself  happy  to  draw  as  near  to  him  as  possible,  both 
by  the  subject  and  the  personages  of  his  poem.  And 
this  completes  our  understanding  of  his  reasons  for 
choosincj  the  lecjend  of  ^neas. 

Was  he  right  or  wrong  in  doing  so  ?  May  it  be  said, 
with  certain  critics,  that  in  the  J^ncid  the  choice  of 
the  subject  has  prejudiced  the  success  of  the  work — 
that  a  poem  whose  hero  was  a  foreigner  and  a  stranger 
was  doomed  in  advance  never  to  become  popular  and 
national  ?  After  the  long  study  just  read,  the  reply  to 
this  seems  easy.  Doubtless  the  legend  of  ^neas  is  of 
Greek  origin  ;  but  we  have  seen  that  it  soon  became 
acclimatised  in  Eome,  that  it  took  a  Roman  colouring 
by  its  mixture  with  the  legends  of  the  country,  and, 
finally,  that  the  State,  far  from  combating,  at  an  early 
date  officially  adopted  it.  When  Virgil  took  possession 
of  it,  it  had  been  related  by  the  historians  and  sung  by 
the  poets  for  more  than  two  centuries.  We  cannot 
then  regard  it  as  one  of  those  frivolous  fables  which  the 
poet  invents  at  his  fancy,  and  pretend  that  ^.neas,  son 
of  Venus,  was  as  indifferent  to  Romans  of  the  Augustan 
epoch  as  was  Francus,  son  of  Hector,  to  Frenchmen  of 
the  sixteenth  century. 


170  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HOEACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

Does  this  mean  that  it  was  as  popular  in  Eome  as 
the  stories  of  Achilles  and  Ulysses  were  in  Greece  ? 
To  suppose  this  were  to  forget  the  radical  differences 
between  the  two  countries.  In  the  Greek  cities  the 
disdain  for  foreigners,  the  dominating  passion  of  the 
Hellenes,  maintains  the  race  in  its  purity.  There  may 
be  diversities  of  rank  and  fortune  between  the  citizens ; 
but  they  have  all  the  same  origin.  The  national  tradi- 
tions are  a  treasure  belonging  to  all,  and  which  none 
allow  to  be  lost.  The  poet  who  undertakes  to  celebrate 
them  is  understood  by  every  one ;  he  sings  for  the  poor 
and  for  the  rich,  for  the  lettered  and  for  the  ignorant ; 
and  when  he  succeeds,  his  success  is  truly  popular, 
since  there  is  no  one  in  the  whole  nation  who  does  not 
take  pleasure  in  listening  to  him.  It  could  not  be  thus 
in  a  city  like  Eome,  formed  of  a  mixture  of  different 
races.  A  population  constantly  renewing  itself,  and 
composed  of  heterogeneous  elements,  has  few  common 
traditions,  and  quickly  forgets  them.  I  suppose  that 
the  plebeians,  whose  recollections  did  not  go  back  very 
far,  knew  indeed  but  little  about  all  these  ancient 
fables  collected  by  the  learned,  and  that  they  left  them 
very  indifferent.  Nor  was  it  for  them  that  Virgil 
wrote.  He  knew  that  he  would  have  lost  his  time,  and 
that  it  was  not  possible  to  interest  the  entire  people 
from  base  to  summit  in  his  work,  as  could  be  done  in 
the  case  of  the  Greeks.  He  only  addressed  the  en- 
lightened classes — the  noble  by  birth  or  fortune,  the 
upper  citizen  circles,  and  persons  of  education.  All 
these  people  —  some  from  aristocratic  vanity  and 
others  in  order  to  imitate  those  above  them — willingly 
recurred  to  the  past.     They  preserved  its  memory  and 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  171 

liked  to  hear  it  spoken  of.  It  is  in  this  class  of  society 
that  Virgil  was  popular ;  and  as  it  was  educated,  so  it 
had  read  the  Homeric  poems,  and  knew  the  Annales  of 
Ennius  and  the  works  of  the  Latin  chroniclers,  therefore 
the  legend  of  ^Eneas  was  quite  familiar  to  it.  In 
choosing  it  for  the  subject  of  his  poem,  Virgil  was 
certain  neither  to  surprise  nor  displease  the  public  for 
whom  he  wrote. 


XL 


iENEAS  IN  SICILY. 

It  would  be  a  very  charming  journey  to  accompany 
^neas  from  Troy  to  Laurentum,  vid  Thrace,  the 
Cyclades,  Crete,  and  Epirus,  stopping  at  Carthage  to 
receive  the  hospitality  of  Dido.  But,  unfortunately, 
everybody  has  neither  the  time  nor  the  means  to 
undertake  so  long  a  jaunt,  and  one  must  know  how 
to  limit  oneself.  Furthermore,  these  ports  and  isles 
are  for  ^neas  merely  stages  where  he  touches,  and 
Virgil  does  not  take  the  trouble  to  describe  them.  He 
scarcely  tells  us  anything  even  of  Africa  itself,  where 
his  hero  remains  longer  than  he  ought  to  do.  This  is 
not  the  true  country  of  the  yEneid  ;  we  must  reserve 
this  title  for  Sicily  and  Italy.  Those  are  the  lands 
known  and  loved  by  the  poet,  whither  he  likes  to  lead 
^neas,  and  which  he  is  happy  in  describing.  We  are 
about  to  try  and  go  over  them  with  him. 


172     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 


I. 


HOW  VIRGIL  CAME  TO  KNOW  SICILY — POLLION  COUNSELS 
HIM  TO  IMITATE  THEOCRITUS — BY  WHAT  QUALITIES 
THEOCRITUS  MUST  HAVE  PLEASED  VIRGIL  —  THE 
MORETUM — WHY  VIRGIL  DID  NOT  CONTINUE  TO 
WRITE  REALISTIC  POEMS — SICILY   IN   THE   BUCOLICS. 

We  learn  from  Virgil's  biography  that  he  was  very 
fond  of  Campania  and  Sicily,  and  that  he  often  lived 
there.  Born  at  the  foot  of  the  Alps,  where  the  winters 
are  often  rainy  and  rough,  he  doubtless  felt  the  kind  of 
instinct  which  impels  people  of  the  north  towards 
southern  countries.  Perhaps  he  found,  too,  that  warm 
climates  better  suited  his  health,  which  was  always  bad. 
He  did  not  like  Eome,  although  he  possessed  a  house 
on  the  Esquiline,  near  the  palace  of  Maecenas.  It  was 
too  noisy  and  busy  a  town  for  him,  and  he  could  only 
write  amid  calm  and  silence.  In  order  to  give  the  last 
touch  to  his  Georgics,  he  ran  away  to  Naples ;  and  when 
the  jEneid  was  in  question,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  go 
further  still.  We  are  told  that  he  composed  a  part  of  it 
in  Sicily. 

He  probably  owed  his  first  revelations  with  regard  to 
Sicily  to  the  idylls  of  Theocritus,  and  learned  from  them 
to  know  and  love  it.  Well,  we  know  at  what  moment 
and  in  what  manner  his  attention  was  first  drawn  to 
the  Sicilian  poet.  He  was  twenty-five  years  old, 
and  lived  on  the  farm  of  his  father,  a  well-to-do 
peasant,  who  had  given  him  the  education  of  a  great 


^.NEAS   IN   SICILY.  173 

lord.  He  had  returned  tliither  after  tlie  conclusion  of 
his  studies,  and  probably  did  not  think  of  leaving  it  again. 
While  he  was  leading  an  indolent,  dreamy  existence  in 
that  beautiful  country  "  where  the  Mincius  rolls  its  lazy 
course,"  poetry  fermented  in  him,  and  sought  an  outlet. 
His  imagination,  still  imperfectly  regulated,  drew  him 
in  every  direction.  He  seemed  not  to  know  himself, 
and  could  not  settle.  Sometimes  he  composed  little 
occasional  pieces  on  the  trivial  events  spoken  of  round 
about  him ;  at  others  he  raised  his  voice,  and,  passing 
from  one  extreme  to  the  other,  sketched  the  beginning 
of  an  epic.  The  verses  he  wrote  thus  at  haphazard 
were  read  to  his  friends,  and  made  him  a  certain  repu- 
tation in  the  neighbourhood.  Pollion  then  governed 
Cisalpine  Gaul.  He  was  a  clever  man,  who  devoted 
his  leisure  to  history  and  poetry,  and  always  delighted 
to  patronise  literature.  He  doubtless  divined  the 
young  man's  talent,  and  regretting  the  indecision  in 
which  so  fine  a  genius  was  tarrying,  he  resolved  to 
put  him-in  a  regular  way,  and  pointed  out  a  model  for 
him  to  follow. 

That  model  was  Theocritus,  whom  the  Eomans  seem 
hitherto  to  have  neglected.  The  study  of  Theocritus 
charmed  Virgil  so  much  that  for  at  least  three  years  he 
did  nothing  but  imitate  him.  Although  no  ancient 
critic  has  told  us  by  what  qualities  this  author  must 
have  chiefly  pleased  him,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  diffi- 
cult to  guess.  I  imagine  that  in  this  confusion  of  his 
first  years,  when  the  component  elements  of  his  genius 
were  not  yet  united  and  welded  together,  he  must  have 
felt  two  different  tendencies  drawing  him  in  contrary 
directions.      He   had,  in   fact,  received   two   different 


174  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

educations,  whose  impress  he  kept  to  the  end.  Nature 
had  first  been  the  master  whose  lessons  had  charmed 
him,  and  whom  he  ever  passionately  loved.  His  child- 
hood was  passed  in  the  fields,  and  for  him  who  under- 
stands them,  the  fields  are  a  school  of  nature  and 
simplicity.  They  give  a  taste  for  the  true,  the  artless, 
the  sincere,  and  a  hatred  for  the  affected  and  the 
mannered.  Such  must  have  been  the  lesson  learnt 
from  this  first  contemplation  of  Nature,  and  which 
remained  at  the  very  root  of  his  talent.  But  he  also 
began  early  the  study  of  books.  At  Cremona,  at  Milan, 
at  Eome,  he  frequented  the  scholiasts,  the  rhetoricians, 
and  the  philosophers,  and  he  also  became  acquainted 
with  Greek  literature,  reading  Homer,  Socrates,  and 
Plato.  It  was  another  intoxication,  and  his  soul,  which 
felt  nothing  by  halves,  gave  itself  up  entirely  to  this 
admirable  poetry.  The  masters  charged  with  the  ex- 
planations of  its  beauties  were  generally  ingenious, 
refined  minds,  who  above  all  sought  to  imbue  their 
pupils  with  a  feeling  for  its  delicacy  and  grace — that 
is  to  say,  for  its  literary  merits.  Virgil,  like  a  docile 
pupil,  prized  these  charming  qualities  highly,  yet 
without  losing  sight  of  the  others ;  and  it  was  doubt- 
less from  the  two  educations  which  he  had  successively 
received  that  he  imbibed  both  the  sentiment  of  the 
simple  grandeur  which  rural  life  teaches  us  to  love,  and 
the  more  artificial  beauties  learnt  in  the  schools ;  that, 
in  short,  he  became  an  artist  and  remained  a  country- 
man. 

If,  as  I  think,  he  was  in  this  frame  of  mind  when  he 
read  Theocritus,  I  am  not  surprised  that  he  should  have 
been  so  impressed  by  him ;  for  it  is  just  this  quality  of 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  175 

uniting  Art  and  Nature  which  the  Sicilian  poet  possesses 
in  a  wonderful  degree.^ 

At  heart  he  is  an  exquisite,  a  friend  of  the  poets  of 
Alexandria ;  mused,  like  them,  "  in  the  aviary  of  the 
Muses  ;  "  but  this  does  not  prevent  him  from  choosing 
as  the  usual  heroes  of  his  verses  goat-herds  and  drovers. 
To  descend  to  them  while  remaining  himself  does  not 
cost  him   an  effort.     He  makes  them  sing  under  the 
great  trees,  "  while  harmonious  bees  hum  around  the 
hives,  the  birds  warble  under  the  leaves,  and  the  heifers 
dance  on  the  thick  turf,"  ^  and  their  songs  have  at  one 
and  the  same  time  a  rustic  accent  and  all  the  refine- 
ments of  laborious  art.    They  sometimes  coarsely  attack 
each  other  ;  like  villagers,  they  revile  their  masters,  they 
insult  their  rivals ;  and  all  this  abuse  is  composed  of 
the  most  exquisite  sounds,  which  sing  to  the  ear  like 
music.     It  is  a  succession  of  complicated  rhythms,  that, 
calling  and  answering  each  other,  contrast  and  combine 
according  to  learned  laws,  of  which  a  herdsman  certainly 
never  had  an  idea.  The  shepherds  of  Theocritus  are  gener- 
ally simple,  superstitious,  credulous  folk,  who  spit  three 
times  in  their  bosoms  to  escape  witchcraft,^  and  who 
think  their  mistress  is  about  to  return  when  they  feel  a 
twitching  in  their  right  eye.*     But  they  are  also  artists 
who  understand  and  who  enumerate  all  the  beauties  of 
a  vase  whose  sides  are  covered  with  delicate  carving, 
and  skilful  singers,  who  draw  harmonious  sounds  from 
the  syrinx,  and  who  find  "  that  summer  and  springtime 

^  On  Theocritus,  see  M.  Girard's  two  studies  in  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes  of  March  15th  and  May  1st,  1882.  M.  Couat  also 
treats  of  the  Sicilian  poet  in  his  Poesie  Alexandrine. 

2  VI.  45.  3  VI,  39  4  in.  31. 


176  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

are  not  so  sweet  as  the  Muse."  ^     All  are  amorous,  yet 
their  manner  of  loving  is  not  the  same.     While  some 
impress  their  passion  in  a  few  words  of  deep  and  simple 
truth,  others  describe  it  with  ingenious  refinement,  like 
clever  people  on  their  guard,  as  one  had  to  be  in  the 
court  of  Ptolemy  or  Hieron.     "When  deserted  by  their 
mistresses,  some  moan  and  complain  gently,  as  becomes 
well-bred  people,  while  others  are  less  enduring  and  less 
proper.      There  are  even  some  who   unceremoniously 
give  tlie  faithless  one  a  blow  on  the  nape  of  the  neck, 
soon  followed  by  a  second.^     There  is  the  same  variety 
in  their  pleasures.     One  thinks  it  the  greatest  bliss  of 
all  to  watch  in  winter  the  beech  log  burning  on  the  hearth, 
and  "  the  smoking  tripe  cooking  on  the  fire."     Others 
are  not  so  easily  satisfied  ;  they  are  only  pleased  when 
couched  on  thick  beds  of  odorous  mastic  or  new-cut 
vine,  while  the  poplars  and  young  elm-trees  wave  above 
their  heads,  and  a  sacred  stream  flowing  from  a  nymph- 
haunted  grot  harmoniously  murmurs  at  their  feet.     To 
bring  together  and  unite  these  contrary  elements  re- 
quired all  the  suppleness  of  the  Greek  genius ;  but  no 
poet   ever   so   perfectly  blended   them   as   Theocritus. 
With  him  all  contrasts  are  merged  in  the  charm  of 
light   and   shade    enveloping    the   whole.      From    his 
entire  work,  composed  of  such  different  parts,  results 
a  singular  impression,  which  gives  to  the  refined  the 
illusion  of  Nature,  and  enables  the  simple  to  define  the 
seduction  of  Art.      Virgil,  as  we  have  just  seen,  was 
both.     He  loved  Art  and  Nature  equally,  and  found  in 
Theocritus  the  wherewithal  to  gratify  both  his  passions 

1  IX.  28.  2  XIV.  34. 


iENEAS  IN   SICILY.  1*77 

at  once.     This  is  why  he  was  so  happy  to  read  and  so 
eager  to  imitate  him. 

Among  the  works  attributed  to  him  is  a  piece  one 
would  fain  think  his,  since  it  is  very  charming,  and 
seems  to  have  been  composed  in  his  youth.  It  is  a 
picture  of  country  life,  very  different  in  character  from 
those  he  drew  in  the  Bucolics.  Here  his  only  aim  is  to 
paint  exactly  a  vulgar  truth.  It  is  what  in  our  days 
we  should  call  a  realistic  piece.  Although  very  ancient, 
it  seems  composed  according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  new 
school.  The  author  has  not  been  prodigal  of  invention 
or  style ;  he  merely  contents  himself  with  reproducing 
what  he  has  before  his  eyes,  without  pretending  to 
change  anything.  He  describes  the  morning  of  a 
peasant,  from  the  moment  he  rises  to  the  hour  he  goes 
to  work.  Let  us  first  remark  that  the  man  is  not  called 
Tityrus  or  Menalcus,  as  in  an  idyll,  but  "  the  flat-nosed  " 
(Simulus),  which  is  quite  a  Eoman  name.^  We  see  him 
slowly  rise  from  his  couch.  The  night  is  black,  and, 
half  asleep,  he  gropes  with  his  hands  before  him  towards 
the  hearth.  When  he  gets  to  it  he  says,  "  Here  I  am." 
Then  he  lights  his  lamp  with  all  kinds  of  precautions, 
"  stretching  his  hand  towards  the  east  wind  to  prevent 
the  light  going  out."  He  soon  wakes  an  only  servant,  an 
old  negress,  of  whom  he  draws  us  a  striking  portrait. 
*'  She  has  frizzled  hair,  a  thick  lip,  a  large  bosom,  hang- 
ing breasts,  a  flat  stomach,  thin  legs,  and  a  foot  which 
spreads  at  ease : " — 

"  Pedore  lata,jacens  mammis,  comjjressior  alvo^ 
Cruribus  exilis^  spatiosa  j^rodiga  -planta.^' 

1  When  speaking  of  a  flat-nosed  girl,  Lucretius  calls  her  "  SimiUa." 
M 


178  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

Helped  by  his  servant,  Simulus  bakes  his  bread,  and 
prepares  the  dish  which  he  is  to  carry  away  for  his 
dinner.  It  is  a  national  dish  called  moreticm,  from  which 
our  poem  takes  its  name.  The  author  is  careful  to  give 
us  the  recipe,  which  does  not  much  tempt  us  to  imitate 
it.  It  consists  of  garlic,  onion,  celery,  rue,  and  cheese. 
All  these  ingredients  are  put  into  a  mortar,  and  while 
Simulus  pounds  them,  an  acid  odour  seizes  his  nostrils, 
his  brows  wrinkle,  and  anon  with  his  hands  he  wipes 
his  weeping  eyes.  When  the  pestle  no  longer  jumps, 
he  passes  his  two  fingers  round  the  mortar,  in  order  to 
bring  to  the  centre  what  covers  the  sides.  The  opera- 
tion finished,  he  puts  on  his  strong  boots,  claps  his 
galerus  upon  his  head,  goes  out  to  his  work — and  here 
our  little  poem  ends. 

The  work  is  piquant  and  curious  in  its  rusticity ;  nor 
would  it  surprise  me  if,  with  our  present  bent  and  the 
taste  prevalent  among  the  public,  it  were  at  the  present 
time  preferred  to  the  Bucolics.  It  will  certainly  be 
asked  why  Virgil,  supposing  him  to  be  its  author,  did 
not  continue  to  describe  country  life  in  this  manner  ? 
Why  did  he  change  his  method,  and  having  begun  to 
walk  in  a  new  path,  abruptly  leave  it  to  follow  in  the 
steps  of  Theocritus  ?  We  must  believe  him  less 
satisfied  than  ourselves  with  his  work,  and  that  these 
servilely  exact  pictures  did  not  appear  to  him  the 
perfection  of  art.  Perhaps  he  thought  that  our  every- 
day existence  being  usually  so  mediocre  and  flat,  it  is 
really  not  worth  while  to  live  it  twice — in  reality  and  in 
dreamland  !  Being  sad  by  nature  and  inclined  to  look 
at  things  from  their  worst  side,  to  escape  for  a  moment 
from  real  life  seemed  to  him  sweet ;  and  he  must  have 


.ENEAS  ]N   SICILY.  179 

clung  more  than  any  one  to  that  imaginary  existence 
in  which  we  can  at  least  correct  the  miseries  of  the 
other,  and  find  help  to  bear  them.  The  perusal  of 
Theocritus  revealed  to  him  a  kind  of  literature  in  which 
reality  is  spiced  with  a  flavouring  of  the  ideal.  This  was 
what  suited  his  tastes,  and  thenceforth  he  knew  no 
other. 

Here,  then,  he  is  plunged  into  imitation  of  the  Greek 
poet.  At  the  same  time  his  Muse  must  become  in  some 
sort  expatriated  and  wander  from  the  spots  it  first 
frequented.  Tityrus  and  Menalcus  cannot,  like  Simulus, 
be  dwellers  on  the  banks  of  the  Po  ;  for  never  did  such 
shepherds  lead  their  flocks  in  the  plains  of  Cisalpina. 
In  order  to  admit  their  being,  it  is  needful  to  imagine 
them  to  have  come  from  far.  Theocritus  places  them  in 
Sicily,  an  admirable  country  in  which  to  house  fancies 
partaking  at  once  of  reality  and  the  ideal.  Virgil  had 
nought  better  to  do  than  to  leave  them  there.  Sicily 
therefore  became  for  him  the  land  above  all  others  of 
the  eclogue,  and  at  times  even  Arcadia  scarcely  disputes 
with  it  this  privilege.  When  he  wants  to  draw  shep- 
herds playing  on  the  syrinx  and  making  rustic  songs, 
he  dreams  of  Sicily.  The  land  enthralls  his  fancy ;  it  is 
everywhere  recurring  in  his  verses,  and  when  about  to 
sing  new  songs,  the  Muse  he  invokes  is  a  Sicilian 
one  : 

"  Sicelides  Musce,  pernio  majora  canamus."  ' 

Eural  poetry  calls  up  in  him  the  memory  of 
Syracuse,  and  he  begins  his  last  eclogue  by  saluting  the 

1  ^n.,  IV.  1. 


180  THE    COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

charming  fountain  of  Ortygia,  of  which  poets  relate  so 
many  legends  : 

"  Extremum  hunc,  Arethusa,  mihi  concede  lahorem.'^  ^ 

When  Corydon  wishes  to  dazzle  his  friend  by  a 
picture  of  his  wealth,  he  renders  him  an  account  of  his 
sheep  which  feed  on  the  pastures  of  Sicily  : 

"  Mille  mece  siculis  erant  in  montihus  agnce."  - 

Although  suspected  of  being  a  Cisalpian,  and  of 
scarcely  ever  having  quitted  Mantua,  he  tells  us,  like 
Polyphemus,  that  he  has  seen  his  form  in  the  placid 
sea,  and  did  not  find  himself  ugly : 

"  Nee  sum  adeo  informis  ;  nuper  me  in  littore  vidi. 
Quum  ijlacidum  ventis  staret  mare."  ^ 

That  sea,  let  us  doubt  not,  is  the  one  in  which  the 
heights  of  Taorminus  or  the  slopes  of  JEtna  are  seen  to 
sparkle  in  the  sun — the  sea  spoken  of  in  those  divine 
verses  of  the  shepherd  of  Theocritus :  "  I  crave  not  to 
possess  the  fields  of  Pelops,  or  pile  up  heaps  of  gold  ; 
nor  would  I  fly  more  swiftly  than  the  winds;  but  may  J  \ 
'neath  this  rock  but  hold  thee  in  mine  arms,  ^nd,  look- 
ing on  my  feeding  sheep,  launch  forth  my  songs 
towards  Sicilia's  sea."  * 

^  ^n.,  X.   1.  -Ibid.,  II.  21. 

2  Ibid.,  II.  25.  ^  Ibid.,  VIII.  53. 


;eneas  in  SICILY.  181 


11. 


SICILY  IN  VIKGIL's  TIME — CHARACTER  OF  THE  GREEKS  OF 
SICILY — WHY  THEY  WERE  ATTACHED  TO  ROMAN 
RULE — SICILY  RUINED  AND  PILLAGED  BY  ROMAN 
GOVERNORS — WHAT  TRAVELLERS  WENT  TO  SEEK 
IN  SICILY — MARVELS  OF  NATURE — MARVELS  OF  ART 
— THE  MONUMENTS  OF  THAT  TIME — PUBLIC  TEMPLES 
PRIVATE  GALLERIES — SHRINE  OF  HEIUS — TASTE  OF 
THE  ROMANS  OF  THAT  TIME  FOR  WORKS  OF  ART — 
THE  PORTRAIT  OF  VERRES  DRAWN  BY  CICERO — 
ATTRACTIONS  OF  SICILY  FOR  VIRGIL. 

It  was  thus  Virgil  became  acquainted  with  Sicily, 
and  as  he  at  first  only  knew  it  from  the  idylls  of 
Theocritus,  it  was  difficult  for  him  not  to  become 
enraptured  with  it.  We  must  believe  that  when  later 
on  he  visited  it  himself,  his  pleasure  was  as  intense, 
and  that  the  reality  confirmed  all  his  dream  illusions. 
Sicily  is  one  of  these  beautiful  countries  where 
deceptions  are  not  to  be  feared,  and  which  fulfil 
everything  that  is  expected  of  them. 

We  have  tlie  somewhat  rare  good  fortune  to  know 
approximately  in  what  condition  Virgil  must  have 
found  it.  As  a  rule,  the  condition  of  Eoman  provinces  is 
but  little  known.  Nobody  tells  us  of  them,  all  eyes  being 
turned  towards  the  capital,  from  which  they  are  not 
wont  to  be  diverted  towards  the  surrounding  country. 
But  in  consequence  of  a  certain  event  some  years 
previous  to  the  Augustan  epoch,  general  attention  was 
for  a  moment  fixed  on  Sicily.     A  great  lord  who  ruled 


182  THE    COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

it  in  the  name  of  the  lloman  people,  having  as  usual 
treated  it  very  harshly,  the  Sicilians  attacked  him  before 
the  tribunals  of  Eome.  They  were  supported  by  the 
democratic  party,  who  wished,  in  the  person  of  the 
extortionate  praetor,  to  discredit  all  his  caste,  and  Cicero 
was  charged  to  prosecute  him.  Causes  of  this  kind 
were  very  common  at  the  time,  and  once  decided,  they 
were  soon  forgotten.  Thanks  to  the  orator's  talent, 
that  of  Verres  became  immortal.  The  orations  of 
Cicero  have  fortunately  been  preserved,  and  they 
abound  in  curious  details  on  the  condition  of  Sicily. 
Let  us  draw  from  this  inexhaustible  source,  and  ascer- 
tain what  it  was  at  that  moment,  and  the  effect  it  must 
have  produced  on  Romans  who  went  to  visit  it. 

We  are  told,  to  start  with,  that  although  the  popu- 
lation of  Sicily  was  very  mixed,  one  of  the  elements 
composing  it  had  nearly  absorbed  all  the  others,  and 
that  a  single  tongue — the  Greek — ruled  in  the  entire 
island.  The  Romans  were  surprised  to  see  that  the 
Greeks  of  this  country  did  not  quite  resemble  those  they 
met  elsewhere.  They  had,  like  their  countrymen,  much 
delicacy  and  charm  of  mind  as  well  as  their  taste  for 
argument,  and,  above  all,  their  liking  for  raillery. 
"In  their  greatest  trials,"  says  Cicero,  "they  always 
find  some  occasion  to  jest."^  But  they  were  also  sober 
and  laborious,  two  qualities  not  met  with  in  a  like 
degree  among  the  inhabitants  of  Greece  proper  or  the 
Greeks  of  Asia.^  Cicero  adds  that  the  Roman  domina- 
tion had  been  well  received  by  them.  They  willingly 
associated  with  the  merchants  of  Rome  who  brought 

1  II.,  Ferr.,  IV.  43.  -  Ibid.,  II.  3. 


/ENEAS   IN   SICILY.  ISS 

them  their  capital  and  their  industry,  and  they  worked 
their  lands  conjointly  with  them,  as  they  afterwards 
did  their  vines  and  their  sulphur  with  Germans  and 
Englishmen.  This  does  not  mean  that  they  had  a 
particular  liking  for  the  Eomans,  but  that  they  felt 
it  impossible  to  do  without  them.  They  reckoned  on 
their  help  to  escape  a  danger  from  which  they  could 
not  defend  themselves  alone.  The  cultivation  of  cereals 
was  the  great  industry  of  Sicily,  and  the  peasantry 
having  become  scarce  there  as  elsewhere,  it  was 
necessary  to  replace  them  by  slaves.  We  know  that 
rich  persons  possessed  several  thousand.  These  slaves 
were  not  settled  in  the  villages  or  scattered  over  the 
farms,  as  field  labourers  are  with  us,  since  Sicily  could 
not  then  possess  more  villages  and  isolated  farms  than 
she  does  in  our  days.  They  were  assembled  in  great 
troops,  like  those  labourers  we  see  perform  the  sowing 
or  the  harvest  in  the  plains  of  Southern  Italy.  Ill-fed, 
ill-clad,  hardly  treated,  they  were  led  to  work  by 
villici,  who  must  have  borne  a  strong  likeness  to  the 
caporali  of  to-day.  They  worked  with  shackled  feet,  and 
during  the  daytime  the  superintendence  of  the  villicus 
prevented  them  from  communicating  with  each  other. 
But  at  night,  in  their  temporary  camps,  it  was  easy 
for  them  to  concert  together.  It  is  thus  that,  within 
a  few  years,  two  revolts  broke  out  which  terrified  the 
world.  A  Syrian  and  a  Cilician,  at  the  head  of  more 
than  sixty  thousand  herdsmen  and  labourers,  were  seen 
holding  Eoman  generals  in  check,  devastating  the 
provinces,  and  spilling  the  blood  of  freemen  in  torrents. 
From  that  moment  the  Sicilians  lived  in  a  sort  of 
perpetual  terror.     Laws  were  made  forbidding  slaves 


184     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

ever  to  carry  arms  about  them,  on  pain  of  death,  and 
these  laws  were  observed  with  the  utmost  rigour. 
"  One  day,"  says  Cicero,  "  an  enormous  boar  was 
brought  to  Domitius  the  praetor.  Surprised  at  the 
animal's  size,  he  wanted  to  know  who  had  killed  it. 
They  told  him  the  shepherd  of  a  Sicilian,  and  he 
ordered  him  to  be  sent  for.  The  shepherd  came  in 
haste,  expecting  praise  and  rewards.  Domitius  asked 
how  he  had  slain  this  formidable  beast.  'With  a  boar- 
spear,'  he  replied.  And  instantly  the  praetor  had  him 
put  on  the  cross."  ^  To  this  ever-menacing  scourge, 
another  had  of  late  years  been  added.  Fleets  of  pirates 
from  Cilicia  covered  the  Mediterranean.  Their  light 
vessels  passed  through  the  squadrons  sent  to  watch 
them,  and  laughed  at  the  heavy  Eoman  galleys.  One 
day  they  were  seen  to  enter  in  bravado  the  port  of 
Syracuse  itself,  and  after  going  the  round  of  the  quays, 
quietly  leave  it,  without  anybody  daring  to  follow 
them.'^  Against  all  these  dangers  the  Sicilians  needed 
the  support  of  Kome,  and  thus,  since  the  Punic  Wars, 
they  had  always  shown  themselves  submissive  subjects. 
They  were  continualh^  paying  court  to  their  conquerors, 
and  Cicero  remarks,  wdth  some  surprise,  that  many 
among  them  took  Eoman  names,  which  appeared  to 
show  a  desire  to  renounce  their  ancient  nationality  and 
accept  that  of  their  new  masters.^     The  two  races  were 


1  II.,  Ferr.,  V.  3. 

2  Ibid.,  V.  37. 

3  Ibid.,  V.  43.  It  was  Antony  who,  after  the  death  of  Caesar,  gave 
the  right  of  Roman  citizenship  to  all  Sicily.  He  pretended  to  have 
found  the  decree,  which  he  published  in  the  Dictator's  papers  ;  but 
Cicero  thinks  the  Sicilians  had  paid  him  to  fabricate  it. 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  185 

therefore  beginning  to  mix  together,  and  that  assimila- 
tion of  Sicily  with  Italy  which  in  our  time  has  become 
so  complete  was  already  in  preparation. 

Not  that  Eome  always  afforded  the  Sicilians  very 
efficacious  protection.     She  sometimes  chose  to  govern 
it   people  who   performed  their  functions  very  badly, 
and  who  pillaged  those  they  should   have   defended. 
Verres,  by  keeping  for  himself  the  money  destined  for 
the  support  of  the  fleet,  and  by  placing  it  under  the 
command  of  his  mistress's  husband,  whose  incapacity 
as  an  admiral  equalled  his  marital  complacency,  had 
delivered  it  to  the  pirates.     He  himself,  during  the  two 
years  of  his  pr?etorship,  had  only  been  solicitous  to  fill 
his    coffers    and   his   galleries.      He   had   put   up   all 
the   municipal   offices   of   the   province   for   sale,   had 
made    the    peasantry   pay   twice    as    much    as    they 
ought,    and,    under     pretence    of    imaginary    crimes, 
had  confiscated  the   fortunes  of  the  richest  and  most 
distinguished  persons.     "  Sicily,"  said  Cicero,  "  is  to-day 
so  enfeebled   and  forlorn,  that   she   will   never  more 
regain  her  ancient  prosperity. "  ^     This  was  a  prediction, 
and  it  was  accomplished  to  the  letter.     The  Empire 
doubtless  gave  to  Sicily,  as  to  the  rest  of  the  world, 
peace  without  and  security  within.     For  nearly  three 
centuries  the  pirates  were  no  longer  heard  of.     There 
were  a  few  more  revolts  of  slaves — for  example,  that  of 
Selurus,  who  was  called  "  the  son  of  ^tna,"  because  he 
for  a  long  time  overran  and  devastated  the  environs  of 
that  mountain.     Strabo  saw  him  devoured  alive  by  the 
beasts  in  the  great  circus  of  Eome,  after  a  combat  of 

1  Ferr.,  I. 


186  THE   COUNTRY   OF    HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

gladiators.  "  They  put  him,"  he  says,  "  on  a  very  high 
scaffolding  representing  ^tna.  Suddenly  the  scaffold- 
ing came  to  pieces  and  fell  in,  and  he  was  hurled  into 
the  midst  of  cages  filled  with  wild  beasts  that  had 
been  placed  beneath."^  As  we  see,  these  attempts 
were  vigorously  repressed,  and  they  never  assumed  the 
terrible  character  of  those  of  Eunus  and  Athenion. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  the  calm  enjoyed  by  the  province  under 
the  Empire,  it  never  recovered.^  Is  it  not  strange  that 
the  peace,  which  it  had  so  longed  for  and  so  little 
known,  could  not  give  it  back  for  a  moment  that 
prosperity,  that  brilliancy,  that  intensity  of  life,  that 
glory  of  letters  and  of  arts,  which  had  favoured  it  so 
wonderfully  while  struggling  amidst  fearful  disorders  ? 

There  happily  remained  to  it  what  it  held  from 
nature,  and  nothing  could  take  away :  the  riches  of  an 
inexhaustible  soil,  in  a  small  space  an  astonishing 
variety  of  sites,  picturesque  mountains,  wastes  well 
outlined,  and  a  climate  of  admirable  serenity  which 
struck  even  Italians  with  surprise.  "  It  is  affirmed," 
said  Cicero,  "  that  at  Syracuse  there  is  no  day  so  dull 
but  the  sun  shines  some  few  moments."^  Add  to 
this  all  those  volcanic  phenomena  so  complacently 
mentioned  by  Strabo,  and  which  excited  wonder  in 
proportion  to  the  impossibility  of  explaining  them : 
those  burning  fountains  gushing  from  the  earth ;  those 

1  Strabo,  VI.  2-5. 

-  The  Emperors  seem  to  have  become  discouraged  from  busying 
themselves  about  Sicily.  It  is  one  of  the  few  provinces  where  no 
milestones,  so  frequent  elsewhere,  have  been  found,  which  seems  to 
show  that  there  Avere  no  great  highways,  or  that  they  were  not  kept 
in  repair  by  the  public  authorities.  See  Mommsen's  reflections  on  the 
subject  {Corp.  insc.  lat.,  X.  p.  714). 

3  11. ,  Ferr.,  Y.  10. 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  187 

mountains  flinging  torrents  of  fire  or  mud ;  those 
flames  running  capriciously  over  the  waters ;  those 
islands  rising  suddenly  from  the  sea  and  sinking  into 
it  again ;  in  short,  all  those  extraordinary  sights  which, 
their  reasons  being  unknown,  were  accounted  for  by 
legends,  and  gave  Sicily  the  reputation  of  being  a  land 
of  wonders. 

But  it  was  not  this  which  chiefly  attracted  travellers. 
The  author  of  a  poem  on  ^tna  complains  that  people 
trouble  themselves  but  little  to  admire  the  great 
sights  of  Nature,  whilst  they  traverse  countries,  cross 
seas,  and  give  themselves  a  thousand  pains  for  the 
sake  of  contemplating  celebrated  pictures  or  old 
monuments.^  So  the  curious  went  to  Agrigentum  or 
Syracuse,  as  they  went  to  Athens  or  Corinth,  to  visit 
the  masterpieces  of  Greek  art.  It  is  certain  that  their 
expectation  was  not  deceived,  and  that  they  did  not 
regret  their  journey.  Let  us  remember  that  all  those 
buildings  whose  ruins  astonish  us,  although  we  have  only 
their  skeletons  left,  were  then  intact  and  complete. 
The  temples  still  had  their  pediments  and  sculptured 
friezes  ;  the  wind  and  the  rain  had  not  worn  the  flutimj 
of  the  columns.  These  were  covered  with  a  coating  of 
stucco  strong  enough  to  protect  them,  yet  sufficiently 
thin  not  to  appear  heavy,  like  those  transparent 
draperies  which  so  perfectly  show  the  forms  of  ancient 
statues.  The  Metopes  produced  their  full  effect,  placed 
above  columns  in  the  very  spot  for  which  they  had 
been  made,  instead  of  being  ranged  along  the  walls  of 
a  museum,  as  we  see  them  to-day.     It  must  be  added 


^  yEtna,  .563,  et 


seq. 


188  THE   COUNTRY  OF  HOE  ACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

that  all  this  Doric  architecture,  which  seems  to  us  so 
majestic  and  so  grave,  was  then  set  off  and  brightened, 
as  it  were,  by  colours  long  since  effaced  by  time.  It 
is  now  known  that  the  Greeks  used  to  apply  to 
marble  and  stucco  paintings  which  at  first  served  to 
correct  the  crudeness  of  the  natural  tones,  and  later,  as 
the  monuments  grew  old,  prevented  them  from  assuming 
those  varieties  of  tint  so  destructive  to  the  unity  of  the 
whole.  Let  us  make  an  effort  of  the  imagination,  and 
strive  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  aspect  those  fine 
edifices  must  have  presented.  The  great  exterior  parts 
are  usually  painted  light  yellow,  a  colour  less  dazzling 
in  the  sun  and  less  crude  than  white,  which  comes  out 
better  against  the  clouds,  and  contrasts  more  pleasantly 
with  the  verdure.  On  this  uniform  ground  the  decora- 
tive details  are  picked  out  in  livelier  tints.  The 
triglyphs  are  painted  blue,  the  background  of  the 
Metopes  and  the  pediments  red,  while  the  columns 
spring  lightly  from  a  darker  basement.  Sometimes 
delicately  traced  lines  indicate  the  jointing  of  the 
stones.  Pliny,  speaking  of  a  temple  of  Cyzicus,  says 
that  "  the  gold  seemed  only  a  pencil-mark  as  fine  as 
a  hair,"  and  that  "  nevertheless  it  produced  marvellous 
reflections."  Towards  the  top,  along  the  friezes  and 
above  them,  the  ornaments  are  more  numerous,  and  the 
colours  more  varied  and  lively,  as  if  to  form  a  sort  of 
crown  to  the  edifice.^     So  much  for  the  outside.     We 

^  I  here  use  M.  Hittorffs  ideas,  and  often  his  very  expressions.  As 
is  well  known,  it  was  he  who,  not  without  raising  violent  disputes, 
tirst  maintained  that  Greek  monuments  were  covered  with  colours,  and 
it  was  his  studies  on  the  temples  of  Segestes  and  Selinonte  which 
revealed  this  truth  to  him.      His  great  work,  The  Ancient  Archi- 


iENEAS  IN  SICILY.  189 

see  how  isjreatly  it  differed  then  from  what  it  is  to-day. 
As  for  the  interior,  we  have  nothing  left  of  it.  The 
walls  of  the  cella — that  is  to  say,  of  the  very  dwelling  of 
the  god — have  disappeared  almost  everywhere,  and  this 
is  a  great  pity,  for  they  were  often  covered  with  fine 
paintings.  At  Syracuse,  in  the  temple  of  Minerva, 
there  were  a  series  of  pictures  representing  the 
incidents  of  a  cavalry  battle  fought  by  Agathocles. 
"  There  is  not,"  says  Cicero,  "  a  picture  more  famous,  or 
which  attracts  a  larger  number  of  strangers."  ^  In  the 
same  temple  they  also  went  to  see  sculptured  doors,  as 
we  visit  those  of  Ghiberti,  at  Florence.  They  were  con- 
sidered an  admirable  work,  and  critics  of  Greek  art  had 
composed  many  treatises  to  set  forth  their  beauties. 
What  appeared  more  curious  yet  was  to  see  ranged 
along  the  walls  the  gifts  that  had  been  offered  to  the 
gods.  Pliny  the  Younger  relates  that,  having  received 
an  inheritance,  he  had  ventured  to  purchase  a  statuette 
of  Corinthian  bronze,  representing  an  old  man,  standing, 
which  seemed  to  him  a  fine  work.  "  I  do  not  mean  to 
keep  it  for  myself,"  he  tells  us.  "  I  wish  to  offer  it  to 
Como,  my  birthplace,  and  place  it  there  in  some  fre- 
quented place,  preferably  in  the  Temple  of  Jupiter.  It 
is  a  gift  which  seems  to  me  worthy  of  a  temple,  worthy 
of  a  god."     In  truth,  fine  statues  are  not  out  of  place 


lecture  of  Sicily,  which  he  left  incomplete,  was  finished  by  his  son, 
M.  Chas.  Hittorff,  and  published  in  1S70.  M.  Chas.  Hittorff  sought  to 
efface  himself  before  his  father,  of  whom  he  was  a  most  devoted  fellow- 
worker,  and  would  not  put  his  name  to  the  first  page  ;  but  this  filial 
piety  must  not  deprive  him  of  tlie  share  of  credit  justly  due'to  him  for 
his  part  in  a  common  work, 
^11.,  Verr.,  IV.  55. 


190  THE   COUNTEY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

there,  even  when  they  do  not  represent  the  divinity  one 
comes  to  pray  to ;  but  there  was  much  besides.  Only 
to  speak  of  the  temples  of  Sicily,  Cicero  reports  that 
tables  of  marble  were  seen  there,  bronze  vases,  ingots  of 
gold,  with  ivory  tusks  of  extraordinary  size ;  and  hang- 
ing from  the  walls  were  helmets  and  cuirasses  tastefully 
wrought,  as  well  as  wooden  pikes,  which  had  doubtless 
served  the  ancient  kings  of  the  country  as  sceptres.^ 
The  temples,  then,  were  not  merely  museums,  as  has 
been  often  said,  but  genuine  storehouses  of  curiosi- 
ties. 

It  must  have  sometimes  been  difficult  for  the  inex- 
perienced traveller  to  find  his  way  in  the  midst  of  all 
these  heaped-up  riches.  Happily  he  could  apply  to 
zealous  and  obliging  persons,  whose  race  is  not  extinct 
in  Italy,  and  who  made  it  their  profession  to  guide 
strangers  and  make  them  admire  the  ancient  monu- 
ments. They  were  called  "  mystagogues  "  or  periegctes. 
There  were  many  of  them  in  Sicily,  as  well  as  in  all 
Greek  countries  visited  by  the  curious,  and  Cicero 
describes  them  as  very  much  perplexed  after  Yerres  had 
cleared  out  all  the  temples.  He  says  :  "  Being  no  longer 
able  to  show  the  precious  objects,  they  were  reduced  to 
pointing  out  the  places  they  used  to  occupy,"  2  which  is 
not  quite  the  same  thing. 

Independent  of  the  public  monuments,  gymnasiums, 
theatres,  or  temples,  which  contained  so  many  remark- 
able works,  there  were  in  Sicily  many  galleries  belong- 
ing to  private  persons,  which  strangers  were  per- 
mitted   to   visit,   as   is   still   the    case   in    Rome    and 

'  II.,  Verr.,  IV.  56.  ''Ihid.,  IV.  59. 


yENEAS  IN   SICILY.  191 

other  important  towns  in  Italy.  Cicero  speaks  of  many 
of  these  rich  collections,  which,  to  their  misfortune, 
excited  the  covetousness  of  the  Verres.  But  there  are 
two  which  he  especially  praises  :  that  of  Steniiis,  at 
ThermcG  Himcrenses  (now  Termini),  and  that  of  Heius, 
at  Messina.  It  had  occurred  to  Heius  to  bring  together 
the  masterpieces  of  his  gallery  in  a  room  expressly 
arranged  for  the  purpose,  a  thing  that  was  done  long  after- 
wards in  the  Tribuna  of  Florence,  and  is  being  imitated 
in  nearly  all  the  museums  of  Europe.  He  possessed  a 
little  chapel,  very  quiet,  very  retired,  with  altars  before 
which  to  pray  to  the  gods,  and  had  adorned  it  only  with 
four  statues,  four  marvels  :  the  Cupid  of  Praxiteles, 
the  bronze  Hercules  of  Myron,  and  two  canephorae  of 
Polycletes.  The  Cupid  had  made  the  journey  to  Eome. 
The  aedile,  C.  Claudius,  had  borrowed  it  of  his  friend 
Heius  to  embellish  a  festival  which  he  gave  to 
the  Eoman  people.  This  was  told  without  fail  to 
visitors,  just  as,  in  our  days,  the  value  of  a  picture  is 
thought  to  be  increased  by  relating  that  it  was  among 
those  taken  away  by  the  French,  and  placed  in  the 
Louvre.  The  chapel  of  Heius  was  open  every  day,  and 
strangers  who  visited  Messina  did  not  fail  to  go  and  see 
it.  "  This  house,"  says  Cicero,  "  did  no  less  honour  to 
the  town  than  to  its  master.'' 

So  people  went  to  visit  Sicily  then  for  the  same 
reasons  that  they  go  now.  Above  all,  she  attracted 
artists,  connoisseurs,  or  those  who  deemed  themselves 
such,  and  admirers  of  Greek  art,  who  knew  her  to  be  at 
the  least  as  rich  in  ancient  monuments  as  Greece  or 
Asia.  The  journey  was  doubtless  not  so  convenient  and 
rapid  as  to-day,  although  perhaps  easier  to  perform  than  it 


192  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  YIRGIL. 

was  a  few  years  since.  Cicero  states  that  when  he  had  to 
draw  up  the  indictment  against  Verres,  he  went  over  the 
whole  island  in  fifty  days,  "  so  as  to  collect  all  the  com- 
plaintsof  the  towns  and  private  persons,"^  which  supposes 
somewhat  easy  means  of  getting  from  place  to  place. 
And  indeed  many  Eomans  visited  Sicily.  In  the 
Verrines,  every  time  the  orator  speaks  of  some  important 
city,  or  of  some  famous  monument,  he  seems  to  suppose 
that  there  are  persons  among  his  audience  who  know 
them. 

This  is  precisely  what  excites  in  us  a  certain  surprise. 
We  are  astonished  that  there  should  be  so  many  people  at 
Rome  who  took  the  trouble  to  go  so  far  to  see  fine  build- 
ings and  rich  museums.  The  Eomans  had  loncj  ostenta- 
tiously  pretended  to  have  a  sovereign  contempt  for  the 
arts,  and  officiating  magistrates  and  orators  who  desired 
to  appear  serious  affected  never  to  have  heard  of  the  great 
artists  of  Greece.  But  this  was  a  comedy.  In  reality 
the  very  men  who  took  pleasure  in  mangling  the 
names  of  Praxiteles  or  Polycletes  in  the  tribune  were 
beginning  to  pay  very  high  prices  for  their  works,  and 
at  Eome  a  middle-sized  bronze  had  just  been  sold  for 
120,000  sesterces  (or  about  £960),  the  price  of  a  farm.^ 
Yerres  happened  to  be  one  of  those  Eomaqs  whom 
Greek  art  had  captivated ;  but  as  he  put  himself  above 
prejudices,  and  prided  himself  on  not  practising  the 
ancient  virtues,  he  had  the  courage  to  own  his  tastes, 
and  was  not  squeamish  as  to  gratifying  them.  His 
being  sent  to  Sicily  was  a  great  misfortune  for  him. 
The  sight  of  the  masterpieces  of  which  that  country 

^  ycrr.,  prima  act.,  2. 
-  II.,  Verr.  IV.  7. 


.ENEAS  IN  SICILY.  19^ 

was  full  inflamed  his  passion  and  goaded  it  to  every 
excess.  I  imagine  that,  before  our  tribunals,  the  kind  of 
fury  that  had  seized  him  for  objects  of  art  would  have 
earned  him  some  indulgence, — at  Eome,  on  the  \  con- 
trary, it  contributed  greatly  to  his  ruin.  Had  he  con- 
tented himself  with  taking  the  money  of  the  provincials, 
he  would  have  created  less  scandal,  since  it  was  then  a 
very  common  crime,  and  people  were  used  to  it ;  but  to 
see  a  Eoman  compromise  himself  so  for  the  sake  of 
stealing  statues  and  pictures  was  not  at  all  a  usual 
thing,  and  indignation  was  increased  by  surprise.  So 
extraordinary  a  crime  seemed  unworthy  of  pardon. 

The  portrait  drawn  by  Cicero  of  Verres  must  be  a  faith- 
ful one,  and  I  have  remarked  that  certain  details  of  the 
figure  have  not  ceased  to  be  true.  It  is  an  original  of 
which  we  have  copies.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  he 
had  a  taste  for  works  of  art — he  had  a  mania  for  them. 
Cicero  reports  that  a  few  days  before  his  suit  was  tried, 
he  assisted  at  a  feast  given  by  Sisenna,  a  rich  Eoman, 
and  in  order  to  do  honour  to  the  guests,  all  the  curio- 
sities possessed  by  the  master  were  brought  out.  Verres 
had  a  great  object  in  appearing  indifferent  to  this  sight, 
since  it  was  important  for  him  to  hide  his  folly  in  order 
not  to  prove  his  accusers  in  the  right.  But  it  was 
impossible  for  him  not  to  approach  these  paraded 
riches,  to  see  them  nearer,  to  touch  them,  to  handle 
them — to  the  great  fright  of  the  slaves,  who  knew  his 
reputation,  and  did  not  lose  sight  of  him.^  When  an 
object  pleased  him,  he  could  no  longer  do  without  it — 
desire  of  possession  became  mania.     He  asked  to  take  it 

1  II.,  Verr.,  IV.  15. 

N 


194  THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGlL. 

away  for  a  few  days  and  did  not  return  it.  Often  he 
proposed  to  buy  it,  and  at  first  the  owner  refused. 
"  Tlie  Greeks,"  says  Cicero,  ''  never  willingly  sell  the 
precious  objects  they  possess."^  But  Yerres  was 
absolute  master  of  the  province,  and  had  a  thousand 
means  of  ruining  those  who  did  not  show  themselves 
willing  to  oblige  him.  After  begging,  he  threatened, 
and  the  poor  wretches  ended  by  resigning  themselves, 
groaning  all  the  while.  This  is  how  he  came  to  give 
only  6500  sesterces  (about  £52)  for  four  fine  statues, 
and  to  pay  1600  sesterces  (about  £12,  16s.)  for  the 
Cupid  of  Praxiteles.^  It  was  a  manifest  theft;  but 
Verres  only  called  it  a  bargain.  This  is  a  good  word  to 
disguise  a  doubtful  business,  and  collectors  like  to  use 
it.  Nothing  pleases  them  so  much  as  not  to  pay  its 
proper  price  for  a  thing.  They  thus  at  one  and  the 
same  time  gratify  their  love  of  economy  and  their 
vanity.  When  it  was  a  question  of  despoiling  the 
public  monuments,  Verres  met  with  still  less  resistance. 
They  were  more  directly  under  his  hand,  besides  which 
each  of  us  is  usually  less  eager  to  defend  what  belongs 
to  all.  Once,  however,  he  was  obliged  to  give  way. 
His  agents  arrived  by  night  in  Agrigentum  to  take 
away  a  statue  of  Hercules,  honoured  by  the  inhabitants 
with  a  particular  worship.  "  The  chin  and  lips,"  says 
Cicero,  "  were  quite  worn  away  with  its  adorers'  kisses."* 
Unfortunately  for  Verres,  the  slaves  who  guarded  the 
temple  gave  the  alarm,  and  the  Agrigentines  assembled 
from  all  quarters  of  the  town,  and  put  the  robbers  to 
flight  with  stones. 

1 II.,  Ferr.,  IV.  59.  ^  jii^.,  6.  ^  j^^^^^  43. 


iENEAS  IN  SICILY.  195 

But  he  was  not  accustomed  to  find  himself  face  to 
face  with  such  determined  adversaries,  so  he  had  no 
need  to  restrain  his  passion,  which  had  indeed  nothing 
to  hamper  it.  He  not  only  sought  after  statues  of 
bronze  or  marble,  Corinthian  vases,  famous  pictures — 
all  those  objects,  in  short,  which  the  curious  contended 
for  at  immense  prices — his  mania  included  everything. 
He  also  collected  jewels,  carpets,  furniture,  and  plate. 
All  the  rich  families  of  Sicily  possessed  'paUra,  incense 
pans,  and  precious  vases  used  in  the  worship  of  their 
domestic  divinities.  When  Verres  had  the  discretion 
not  to  take  them,  he  at  least  removed  the  metal 
ornaments  in  which  they  were  enclosed,  and  which  were 
generally  remarkable  works  of  art.  Then  he  fixed  these 
ornaments  on  gold  cups,  and  thus  manufactured  sham 
antiques.  At  Syracuse  there  were  studios  where  skilful 
artificers  worked  for  him,  and  there  he  passed  entire 
days,  dressed  in  a  brown  tunic  and  a  Greek  mantle.^ 
This  is  again  a  very  common  fancy  among  collectors. 
They  imagine  that  by  these  repairs  and  restorations — 
by  allowing  themselves  to  finish  and  modify  the  works 
of  the  masters,  they  become  their  collaborators,  and 
their  love  increases  for  works  into  which  they  have  put 
something  of  themselves. 

Cicero  adds,  as  a  last  touch  to  the  picture,  that 
Verres  was  at  bottom  very  ignorant,  and  little  capable 
of  appreciating  all  these  works  of  art  which  he 
amassed.  He  had  at  his  orders  very  experienced  Greek 
artists,  whose  duty  it  was  to  inform  him.  "  He  sees  with 
their  eyes,"  says  Cicero,  "  and  takes  by  their  hands."  ^ 

1  II.,  Verr.,  IV.  23.  -  Ibid.,  IV.  15. 


196  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

Amateurs  are  not  always  connoisseurs,  which,  how- 
ever, does  not  prevent  them  from  passionately  loving 
objects  whose  full  value  they  do  not  understand ;  for 
it  is  well  known  that  the  least  enlightened  passions 
are  sometimes  the  strongest.  That  of  Verres  was 
increased  by  the  spice  of  violence  and  coarseness 
usually  existent  in  the  Eoman  soul.  They  were  still 
soldiers  and  peasants.  Greece  had  not  succeeded  in 
destroying  the  foundation  of  barbarism  and  brutality 
derived  from  nature,  and  they  still  occasionally  united 
outbursts  of  savagery  with  the  delicate  tastes  of  civilized 
beings.  Let  us  suppose  an  amateur  of  this  character  to 
possess  unlimited  authority,  that  he  is  in  a  conquered 
country  with  submissive  subjects  at  his  feet,  and  assidu- 
ous flatterers  around  him  ;  he  will  soon  lose  his  head  and 
think  everything  allowed  him.  It  was  this  intoxication 
of  absolute  power  in  an  odious  nature,  joined  to  an 
unwholesome  admixture  of  the  Eoman  and  the  Greek, 
which,  under  the  Empire,  produced  Nero.  Verres  was 
a  sketch  for  Nero  under  the  Eepublic. 

Happily  for  Sicily,  the  Eomans  who  came  to  settle 
there  were  not  all  like  Verres.  To  return  at  last  to 
Virgil,  whom  we  have  left  too  long,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  he  also  was  sensible  of  the  beauties  of  Greek  art. 
Let  us  be  assured  that  he  did  not  pass  through  such 
towns  as  Selinus,  Agrigentum,  or  Syracuse  without 
lively  emotion.  He  certainly  visited  their  theatres  and 
their  temples,  and  admired  the  statues  and  pictures 
remaining  in  them  after  the  thefts  of  the  terrible 
prsetor :  but  he,  at  least,  was  content  to  admire.  We 
may  believe  that  the  memory  of  the  monuments  he 
has  seen  in  Sicily  recurred  to  his  thoughts  when  he 


i^lNEAS  IN  SICILV.  197 

had  to  describe  similar  edifices.  Has  he  not  Agrigentum 
or  Segesta  in  mind  when  he  talks  to  us  of  those  temples 
"  that  rise  upon  an  ancient  rock,  with  pinnacles  npborne 
by  a  hundred  columns  "  ?  ^  Does  not  his  mind  go  back 
to  the  rich  colouring  to  which  I  alluded  just  now 
when  he  describes  those  magnificent  roofs  sparkling 
with  gold  {aurea  teda)  ?  ^  Yet  I  am  tempted  to  think 
that  having  come  to  Sicily  chiefly  to  seek  repose,  he 
was  still  more  touched  by  the  charms  of  the  climate 
and  the  beauties  of  nature.  I  imagine  that  he  must 
have  chosen  somewhere  in  a  pleasant  place,  on  these 
mountains  sloping  to  the  sea,  a  solitary  dwelling  where 
he  could  work  without  distraction  at  his  great  epic. 
Sicily  had  for  him  the  merit  of  recalling  Greece. 
While  still  young,  he  had  expressed  in  celebrated 
verses  the  happiness  he  should  feel  in  traversing  the 
beautiful  valleys  of  Thessaly  or  of  Thrace,  and  in 
seeing  the  young  Spartan  maidens  bound  on  the  heights 

of  Taygeta  : 

"0  uhi  campi 
SpercMusque^  et  virginihus  haccata  Laccenis 
Taygeta!"^ 

It  is  most  astonishing  that  he  should  not  have 
undertaken  this  longed-for  journey  till  the  last  year  of 
his  life.  Probably  Sicily  inspired  him  with  patience 
— Sicily  was  Greece  too,  but  a  Greece  nearer  to  him, 
more  within  his  reach,  and,  above  all,  almost  Italian. 
This  was  for  Virgil  a  great  reason  for  loving  it.  Indeed 
he  makes  great  efforts  to  join  it  to  Italy  entirely.     He 

*  ^n.,  III.  84  :  **  Saxostruda  vetusto  "  ;  YII.  170 :  **  Contum  sublime 
columnis. " 
2  IMd.,  VI.  13.  3  Georg.,  II.  487. 


108  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VlRGIL. 

afi&rms  that  it  origiually  formed  part  of  Italy,  and  that 
in  reality  it  belongs  to  the  country,  although  Greek  in 
appearance  and  in  language.  "These  parts,"  he  tells 
us,  "  were  formerly  shaken  and  overwhelmed  by  deep 
convulsions.  The  two  lands  formed  but  one,  when  the 
furious  sea  forced  itself  a  passage  between  them  and 
divided  them  with  its  waves.  It  was  thus  they  became 
violently  separated  one  from  the  other,  and  that  a  narrow 
channel  ran  between  these  towns  and  fields,  formerly 
united."^  Hence  Virgil  found  himself  authorised 
to  confound  them  in  his  affection,  and  treat  Sicily 
like  the  rest  of  Italy.  The  origin  of  the  two  countries 
being  the  same,  he  could  well  give  it  a  place  in  the 
national  poem,  which  was  to  contain  all  the  traditions 
and  all  the  glories  of  the  Italian  fatherland.  This 
place,  as  we  are  about  to  see  from  his  poem,  was  very 
large,  and  only  Latium  has  a  greater  one.  Sicily 
fills  one  entire  Book  of  the  uEneicl,  and  nearly  half  of 
a  second. 

III. 

THE  THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  jENEID — ^NEAS  IN  EPIRUS — HE 
TOUCHES  AT  ITALY — TARENTUM — HE  PASSES  INTO 
SICILY — ^TNA — THE  ISLE  OF  ORTIGIA — THE  FOUNTAIN 
OF  ARETHUSA — AGRIGENTUM — WHAT  YIRGIL'S  FEEL- 
INGS MUST  HAVE  BEEN  WHEN  HE  WENT  OVER  THE 
RUINS  OF  GREEK  CITIES  IN  SICILY — DREPANUM — 
DEATH  OF  ANCHISES. 

The  Third  Book  of  the  uEneid  shows  us  ^neas  seek- 
ing a  new  abode.     The  poet  tells  us  that  after  escaping 

1  .En.,  III.  414. 


^NEAS  IN  SICILY.  199 

from  Troy,  he  took  refuge  in  the  high  valleys  of  Ida, 
where  he  passed  a  season  in  resting  from  his  fatigues 
and  preparing  for  his  voyage.  He  then  starts,  without 
well  knowing  whither  he  is  going.  He  has  resolved  to 
be  guided  by  the  oracles,  but  oracles,  as  we  know,  are 
not  always  very  clear,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
them.  They  advise  ^neas  to  withdraw  to  Hesperia, 
that  is  to  say,  the  regions  of  the  west.  This  is  a  very 
vague  expression,  which  shows  him  approximatively  the 
direction  he  is  to  follow,  but  does  not  tell  him  the 
precise  spot  he  must  stop  at.  Even  when  the  prophetess 
Cassandra  talks  to  him  about  Latium  and  the  Tiber, 
their  names,  quite  unknown  to  an  inhabitant  of  Asia 
Minor,  do  not  teach  him  much.  As  for  the  other 
direction,  that  he  must  return  to  the  land  whence  came 
his  forefathers,  it  would  have  been  necessary,  in  order 
that  it  should  suffice  him,  for  him  to  thoroughly  know 
the  history  of  his  most  remote  ancestors,  and  we  see 
that  the  memory  of  them  was  lost.  It  is  not  surprising 
that  having  so  imperfect  a  knowledge  of  the  country 
whither  the  gods  ordered  him  to  go,  he  should  have 
so  often  lost  his  way.  Thus  it  happens  that,  after 
many  mistakes,  a  wind  sent  by  Providence  blows 
him  into  the  Adriatic,  opposite  Italy,  and  then  impels 
him  into  the  Gulf  of  Leucate ;  that  is  to  say,  to  the  very 
spot  where  the  battle  of  Actium  was  fought.  One 
might  be  tempted  to  think  that  Virgil  had  invented 
this  incident,  which  allowed  him  to  connect  the  fortunes 
of  ^neas  with  those  of  Augustus.  But  this  is  not  so, 
for  the  legend  was  much  older  than  those  of  Augustus 
or  Virgil,  since  Varro  had  related  it.  But  of  course  the 
poet  turns  it  to  great  account.     He  is  happy  to  take 


200  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

tlie  Trojan  hero  to  the  shores  where  his  great  descendant 
is  to  gain  the  victory  that  will  make  him  master  of  the 
world,  to  show  him  to  us  stopping  there  with  satisfaction, 
foreseeing  confusedly,  and  by  a  kind  of  divination,  the 
great  destinies  for  which  these  places  are  reserved,  and 
already  celebrating  with  his  followers  games  that  seem 
to  foreshadow  and  prepare  those  which  the  great 
Emperor  will  establish  after  the  defeat  of  Antony. 

From  Actium  ^neas  repairs  to  Epirus,  where  he 
finds  Andromache  again,  with  Helenus,  her  new 
husband.  Helenus  is  a  very  skilful  seer,  and  as  ^neas 
never  misses  an  occasion  to  inquire  the  will  of  the  gods, 
he  takes  great  care  to  consult  him.  It  is  from  him  he 
learns  with  some  clearness  the  road  he  must  follow. 
The  Fates  order  him  to  bear  his  gods  into  Italy,  but  the 
part  of  Italy  in  which  he  must  settle  is  not  that  seen 
opposite  Epirus.  He  must  skirt  the  coasts  of  Calabria, 
"  his  oars  must  beat  the  waves  of  the  Sicilian  sea,"  he 
must  visit  Campania,  and  he  must  see  closely  the  rock 
of  Circe,  before  he  can  reach  that  peaceful  shore  where 
he  is  to  fix  his  dwelling.  This  time  ^neas  is  very 
clearly  directed,  and  "  when  he  spreads  the  wings  of  his 
sails  to  the  breath  of  the  winds,"  he  knows  where  he  is 
going  and  the  road  that  will  take  him  to  the  goal  of  his 
enterprise. 

It  is  on  this  journey  that  we  are  about  to  follow  him. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  are  these  poetic  fictions  to  be 
taken  seriously  ?  Must  we  accompany  the  hero  of  a 
legend  step  by  step,  try  to  find  places  to  which  he 
never  went,  and  take  the  trouble  to  draw  up  a  regular 
plan  of  his  wanderings,  as  if  real  travels  were  in  ques- 
tion ?    Why  not  ?     Ancient  poets  love  to  put  reason 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  201 

into  fancy,  and  give  to  fable  the  colouring  of  truth. 
When  we  read  them,  good  sense  has  only  a  single 
concession  to  make.  It  must  accept  the  fictitious  per- 
sonage presented  to  it,  and  the  marvellous  premises  of 
the  tale  it  is  about  to  hear ;  that  done,  we  enter  the 
domain  of  reality,  and  do  not  leave  it  again.  This 
imaginary  hero  will  now,  on  the  whole,  only  do  reason- 
able things,  and  his  existence  will  usually  unfold  itself 
under  the  ordinary  conditions  of  human  life.  This 
manner  of  introducing  truth  into  the  legend,  and  satisfy- 
ing imagination  and  good  sense  at  the  same  time,  is  one 
of  the  greatest  charms  of  ancient  poetry.  Let  us  then 
follow  ^neas  without  repugnance,  and  be  convinced 
that  Virgil  is  about  to  describe  perfectly  real  landscapes 
to  us,  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the  time  he  will  only 
depict  what  he  has  himself  seen. 

^neas  must  first  pass  from  the  shores  of  Epirus  to 
those  of  Italy.  There  is  a  narrow  arm  of  the  sea  to  cross, 
a  few  hours'  passage,  which  would  be  mere  child's  play 
for  a  vessel  of  our  days.  But  then  pilots  did  not  dare 
to  leave  the  shore.  We  must  see  the  precautions  taken 
by  the  pilot  of  ^neas  before  risking  himself  amid  the 
floods,  and  daring  to  lose  sight  of  the  land.  "  Night, 
led  by  the  hours,  had  not  yet  reached  the  middle  of  the 
sky,  when  watchful  Palinurus  rises,  inquires  of  all  the 
winds,  and  lends  his  ear  to  the  least  breath.  He 
observes  the  stars  which  glide  through  silent  space: 
Arcturus,  Hyades,  the  two  Bears,  Orion,  with  his  sword 
of  gold.  Then,  when  he  sees  that  all  is  calm  in  the 
tranquil  sky,  from  the  height  of  the  poop  he  gives  the 
signal  of  departure."^  The  voyage  is  accomplished 
1  ^n..  III.  512. 


.^" 


202  TttE  COUNTRY  OV  HORACE  AND   VIRGlL 

without  accident.  At  the  first  rays  of  morn,  the 
Trojans  see  before  them  a  promontory  crowned  by  a 
temple,  and  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  a  natural  port  open 
towards  the  east,  where  they  shelter  their  ships.^  Here 
it  is  that  j^nesis  for  the  first  time  touches  Italian 
soil.  He  piously  salutes  it,  but,  true  to  the  orders 
received  from  Helenus,  he  only  remains  there  a  few 
hours,  and  then  continues  his  way,  skirting  the  coast. 

"  Then,"  he  adds  in  his  rapid  recital,  "  we  arrive  at 
the  entrance  of  the  Gulf  of  Tarentum.  From  the  other 
side  rises  the  temple  of  Juno  Sacinia ;  further  on 
Gaulon  and  Squalan  are  seen,  fruitful  in  wrecks."^  That 
is  all,  and  three  lines  suffice  him  to  depict  all  the  coast 
of  Apulia  and  Calabria — that  is  to  say,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  landscapes  of  Italy.  I  think  it  must  have  cost 
him  something  to  be  so  moderate.  Had  he  not  resolved 
to  sacrifice  everything  to  the  unity  of  his  work,  he 
would  have  found  it  difficult  not  to  dwell  with  pleasure 
upon  this  beautiful  land,  and  his  Muse  would  willingly 
have  lingered  there  awhile ;  but  he  belonged  to  a  severe 
school,  who  made  it  a  law  to  abridge  needless  descrip- 
tions. So  he  resigned  himself  to  saying  nothing  of  the 
famous  cities  that  decked  this  coast ;  nothing  of  Sybaris, 
whose  luxury  was  so  renowned  in  antiquity;  nothing 
of  Crotona,  where  lived  Pythagorus ;  nothing  of  Meta- 
pontum,  where  he  died.  He  has  only  made  an  excep- 
tion for  Tarentum,  and  even  here  he  only  mentions 
its  name,  which  is  strange,  if  one  remembers  the  im- 

^  The  description  is  so  exact  that  the  place  meant  by  Virgil  was 
recognised  without  difficulty.  It  is  the  little  village  of  Castro,  a 
few  leagues  from  Otranto,  not  far  from  the  promontory  of  Japagia, 
now  called  Santa  Maria  di  Leuca. 

2  ^n.,  III.  550. 


^NEAS  IN   SICILY.  20o 

portance  it  then  had,  and  the  place  it  held  in  the  life 
of  some  rich  Eomans.  Tarentum  had  become  one  of 
the  summer  haunts  they  preferred,  although  it  had  the 
inconvenience  of  being  at  a  great  distance  from  Eome. 
But  when  a  generation  of  the  bored  is  attacked  by  a 
mania  for  travelling,  and  feels  a  need  to  leave  home 
and  business  during  a  part  of  the  year,  it  does  not 
usually  long  remain  faithful  to  the  spots  wherein  it 
goes  to  seek  repose.  Like  all  remedies,  they  soon 
cease  to  be  efficacious,  and  no  longer  cure  it  of  tedium. 
Others  must  then  be  sought,  possessing  the  charm  of 
novelty ;  and  it  generally  chooses  them  farther  off,  and 
less  accessible  than  the  others,  in  order  that  they  may 
render  the  pleasure  of  changing  place  more  keen. 
For  a  long  time  the  great  lords  of  Eome  were  content 
to  reside  at  Tusculum  or  Veii,  when  they  desired  to 
refresh  themselves  from  the  fatigues  of  political 
life.  Then  they  went  a  little  further — to  Pneneste,  to 
Tibur,  and  afterwards,  when  all  Italy  was  conquered, 
to  Naples,  to  Baia,  to  Cum«,  to  Pompeii,  which  was 
indeed  a  journey.  At  the  point  of  time  we  have  arrived 
at,  Baia  seemed  to  many  of  these  disgusted  ones  a  spot 
too  hackneyed,  and  almost  vulgar ;  and  in  order  to  get 
further  off,  they  fled  as  far  as  Tarentum.  It  must 
be  owned  that  "  soft  Tarentum "  deserved  the  pains 
people  took  to  get  to  it.  Horace  was  right  when  he 
said  that  nothing  in  the  world  seemed  to  him  prefer- 
able to  this  corner  of  earth : — 

"  Ille  terrarum  mihi  prceter  omnes 
Angulus  ridet."  ^ 

1  Carm.,  II.  6,  19. 


204  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

It  was  a  town  of  delights,  made  as  if  expressly  to  be 
the  favourite  sojourn  of  an  Epicurean/  and  which, 
rocked  by  the  waves  and  perfumed  by  the  odour  of 
its  gardens,  had  for  the  last  century  been  finally  and 
gently  dying  out  in  idleness  and  pleasure.  It  is  placed 
between  two  seas.  On  the  one  side  is  the  gulf  bearing 
its  name  which  ^neas  crossed  when  sailing  towards 
Sicily ;  on  the  other,  a  vast  interior  lake,  50  kilo- 
metres round,  only  communicating  with  the  gulf  by  a 
narrow  cutting,  and  which  the  tongue  of  land  the  city 
is  built  on  shelters  from  tempests.  In  bad  weather 
nothing  is  more  interesting  than  the  contrast  between 
the  troubled  and  the  tranquil  waves.  While  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  high  sea  one  beholds  storm-beaten  ships,  in 
the  interior  sea  little  lishing-boats  go  quietly  about, 
casting  or  raising  their  nets.^  A  little  further  on  a 
vast  plain  lies  spread  out,  devoid  of  great  landscape  fea- 
tures, but  rich  and  smiling,  such  as  the  ancients  loved. 
It  rises  little  by  little  towards  the  mountains  that 
shut  it  in  to  the  north,  and  whence  descend  the 
little  streams  which  throw  themselves  into  the  sea, 
after  scattering  a  little  freshness  on  their  way.  One 
of  these  is  the  Galesus,  sung  by  Yirgil  in  his  Georgics — 
for  Virgil,  like  Horace,  was  a  frequenter  of  Tarentum. 
It  is  impossible  to  forget  the  picture  he  draws  us  of 
that  good  old  man  who,  in  happy  spots  "  where  black 
Galesus  winds   through   meadows   gold  with   grain,"  ^ 

^  Cicero,  Adfavi.,  VII.  12. 

2  Even  in  antiquity  the  Mare  piccolo  had  the  character  of  an  incom- 
parable fishing-ground.  Horace  tells  us  that  gourmets  held  the  shell- 
fish of  Tarentum  in  high  esteem  :  Pectinibus  patulis  jactat  se  molle 
Tarentum.— Sat.  II.  4,  34. 

3  Georg.,  IV.  126. 


.ENEAS   IN   SICILY.  205 

clears  a  few  acres  of  abandoned  land.  After  sowing 
there  amid  the  brambles  squares  of  vegetables,  sur- 
rounded by  a  border  of  lilies,  vervain,  and  poppies,  and 
planted  a  few  elms  and  plane  trees  to  shelter  his  rustic 
table,  he  thinks  himself  equal  to  a  king,  because  he  culls 
first  of  all  men  the  rose  in  spring,  and  fruits  in  autumn. 
It  is  in  this  charming  passage  of  the  Georgics  that  we 
must  seek  the  impression  made  on  Virgil  by  Tarentum. 
In  the  JEneid,  as  his  hero  does  not  stop  there,  he  has 
not  thought  fit  to  stop  there  either,  and  contents  him- 
self with  mentioning  the  name.  But  he  was  quite 
sure  that  the  name  would  suggest  to  his  readers 
memories  which  I  would  fain  recall  by  the  way. 

In  the  meantime  ^neas  continues  to  skirt  the  coasts 
of  Calabria.  Having  reached  the  extremity  of  the 
peninsula,  and  passed  the  last  promontory,  "Capo 
Spartivento,"  he  suddenly  perceives  a  magnificent 
spectacle.  It  is  Sicily,  whose  coasts  he  beholds 
receding  in  the  distance,  and,  above  all,  ^tna  rising 
before  him.  ^tna  holds  a  great  place  in  the  admira- 
tion and  curiosity  of  the  ancients.  It  is  known,  how- 
ever, that  they  were  not  very  sensible  to  the  beauties 
of  wild  sites.  The  glaciers  dismayed  them,  and  they 
seem  never  to  have  brought  themselves  to  examine  the 
Alps  closely,  so  loath  are  they  to  speak  of  them.  But 
^tna,  placed  in  the  very  heart  of  a  country  they  loved 
to  visit,  forced  itself  on  their  attention.  It  too  often 
met  their  sight,  and  was  the  theatre  of  phenomena  too 
terror-striking  for  them  possibly  to  be  silent  about  it. 
And  this  is  why,  in  spite  of  their  preference  for  calm 
and  reposeful  landscapes,  they  busied  themselves  a 
great  deal  about  the  terrible  mountain.     There  were 


206  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

then,  as  in  our  days,  very  many  tourists  who  risked  the 
ascent ;  Strabo,  who  tells  us  so,  invoked  their  testimony 
several  times.^  They  started  from  the  little  town  of 
^tna,  as  we  do  now  from  Nicolosi.  They  rose  pain- 
fully through  a  desolate  region,  across  cinders  and 
snow,  to  the  approaches  of  the  summit.  Along  the 
way  they  sometimes  witnessed  singular  spectacles. 
Priests  bending  over  the  mouths  of  the  volcano  made 
sacrifices,  or,  by  the  aid  of  various  practices,  sought  to 
divine  the  future.  Nearly  arrived  at  the  end  of  the 
journey,  some  superstitious  persons  stopped,  seized  by 
a  kind  of  sudden  terror.  They  feared,  by  finishing  the 
journey,  to  surprise  secrets  whose  knowledge  the  gods 
reserved  to  themselves.  Others,  more  daring,  went  for- 
ward as  far  as  it  was  possible  to  go.  The  more  truthful 
relate  that  it  was  almost  impossible  to  reach  the  brink 
of  the  crater,  to  which  access  was  barred  by  smoke  and 
flame.  However,  their  accounts  seldom  agree.  Strabo 
infers  from  that  that  the  top  of  the  volcano  must  not 
always  wear  the  same  aspect,  and  that,  doubtless,  each 
eruption  changes  its  form.  The  testimony  of  modern 
travellers  quite  confirms  this  opinion. 

Another  kind  of  curiosity  very  conceivable  in  people 
who  were  so  often  the  witnesses  or  the  victii^s  of  the 
fury  of  ^tna  was  to  inquire,  and,  if  possible,  discover, 
its  cause.  How  can  it  be  that  at  certain  moments 
showers  of  cinders  cover  the  mountains,  and  rivers  of 
lava  flow  down  to  the  sea  ?  As  was  natural,  the  reasons 
first  given  were  borrowed  from  mythology.  It  was  the 
vanquished  of  the  great  battles  of  Olympus,  whom  the 

^  Strabo,  VI.  2,  8,  and  the  poem  of  ^tna. 


^NEAS  IN   SICILY.  207 

triumphant  gods  had  hurled  into  the  abyss.  It  was 
Typhon,  it  was  Enceladus,  it  was  the  fabled  giants 
pressed  down  by  the  heavy  mountains,  and  whose 
breasts,  crushed  by  the  weight,  vomited  flames.  "  Every 
time,"  says  Virgil,  "they  turn  their  weary  sides,  the 
whole  of  Sicily  trembles  and  roars,  and  the  sky  is 
veiled  in  smoke."  ^  These  poetic  and  childish  explana- 
tions, with  which  ^neas  contents  himself,  did  not 
always  suffice.  A  century  after  Virgil,  a  writer,  appar- 
ently belonging  to  the  bold  school  of  Seneca,  an  enemy 
of  the  ancient  traditions,  sought  to  give  another  reason 
more  serious  and  more  learned.^  He  supposes  that  the 
waters  of  the  sea  engulf  themselves  in  the  depths  of 
^tna  by  underground  cavities,  while  the  wind  pene- 
trates it  by  other  openings.  Once  in,  they  naturally 
meet  in  these  narrow  passages,  and,  clashing  together, 
have  terrible  struggles  which  make  the  earth  tremble, 
and  when  at  last  they  find  some  issue  they  escape  in 
a  tempest  of  flames.  Such  is  the  system  somewhat 
heavily  expounded  by  the  poet  in  a  poem  of  more  than 
600  lines.  He  does  not  quite  guarantee  its  certainty, 
and  more  often  gives  it  as  an  hypothesis.  However,  he 
is  very  pleased  to  develop  it,  since  it  exonerates  him 
from  believing  in  the  mythological  fictions.  He  is  a 
freethinker,  very  proud  of  being  so,  who  abuses  his 
unfortunate  brethren  much,  when  they  venture  to  talk 
of  Enceladus  or  of  Vulcan,  and  who  for  his  part  pro- 

1  III.  581. 

2  It  is  thought,  although  it  is  not  certain,  to  have  been  Lucilius,  to 
whom  Seneca  addressed  his  famous  letters.  He  was  intendant  of 
Sicily,  and  while  sojourning  there  had  an  opportunity  of  studying 
^tua. 


208  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HOEACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

fesses  only  to  care  for  the  truth,  in  vero  mihi  cura} 
But  in  spite  of  this  bragging,  he  is  at  heart  only  a  timid 
freethinker,  ill  weaned  from  those  fabulous  stories  he 
laughs  at,  and  who  commits  the  very  weaknesses  with 
which  he  sternly  reproaches  others.  Before  beginning 
his  poem  he  invokes  Apollo,  under  the  pretext  that 
"  this  god  helps  us  to  walk  with  more  assurance  in 
unknown  ways  ; "  ^  and  in  order  to  make  us  understand 
the  terrible  beauty  of  the  eruptions  of  ^tna,  he 
seriously  tells  us  that  "  Jupiter  himself  admires  from 
afar  the  jets  of  flame,  and  fears  that  the  giants  are 
thinking  of  taking  the  field  again,  or  that  Pluto,  dis- 
contented with  his  share,  desires  to  exchange  hell  for 
heaven."  ^  This  poet,  so  well  pleased  with  himself, 
seems  to  me  the  faithful  image  of  the  society  in  the 
midst  of  which  he  lived,  and  which  was  wrought  by 
contrary  instincts.  Sceptical  and  believing,  at  the 
same  time  mocking  and  devout,  it  laughed  at  the  old 
gods  and  looked  around  everywhere  for  new  ones. 

However  rapid  the  voyage  of  ^neas,  it  was  impos- 
sible for  ^tna  not  to  arrest  his  attention  for  a  moment. 
Virgil  was  therefore  obliged  to  describe  it.  He  does  so 
in  a  few  lines,  in  which  he  represents  it  at  times 
launching  into  the  air  clouds  of  smoke  mixed  with 
burning  cinders,  and  flames  that  touch  the  stars,  and 
at  others  vomiting  calcined  stones  and  melted  rocks, 
while  the  mountain  boils  down  to  the  deepest  of  its 

abyss : 

"  Horrijicis  juxta  toned  ^tna  minis, 
Interdumque  atram  prorumpit  ad  cethera  nuhem. 
Turbine  fumantem  piceo  et  candente  favilla, 

^^tna,  90.  ^  Ibid.,  8.  ^  Ibid.,  200, 


^NEAS  IN   SICILY.  209 

Attollitque  glubos  flammaram  d  sidera  lamhit: 
Interdum  scopulos  avulsaque  viscera  montis 
Erigit  eructcms,  liquefactaque  saxa  suh  auras 
Gum  geniitu  glomerat,  fundoque  excestuat  imo."  ^ 

These   sonorous   and  brilliant   lines  were   from    the 
very  first  appreciated  by  connoisseurs,  and  cited  in  the 
schools  as  a  finished  model  of  description,  so  much  so 
that  Seneca,  not  a  partial  judge,  declared  that  he  had 
nothing  to  find  fault  with  in  it  or  to  add  to  it.^     Yet  a 
critic  of  the  second  century,  usually  very  respectful  of 
established  reputations  and  received  opinions,  took  it 
into  his  head  to  protest  against  this  general  admiration. 
He   pointed  out   many  weaknesses  in  this  so  -  called 
masterpiece,  and  concluded  that  it  was  one  of  those 
passages  which  the  author  would  have  recomposed  if 
he  had   had   time,  and  whose  imperfection  tormented 
him  on  his  death-bed.     This  is  doubtless  a  great  exag- 
geration, and  Scalager  had  no  trouble  in  proving  that 
the  famous  passage  contains  many  fine  lines.     For  my 
own  part,  I   might   be   tempted   to   think   them    per- 
haps   too    fine.      One   perceives   that  the  poet    seeks 
effective    expressions  and   piles  up  hyperboles.      If   I 
must  say  all  I  think,  I,  like  Aulu-Gelle,  find  a  little 
verbosity  and  effort  in  it.^     It  is  not  Virgil's  fault,  but 
^tna  was  here  in    question.     The   poet   felt  himself 
grappling    with    an   important,   difficult   subject   that 
absorbed  people's  imaginations,  and  overdid  himself  a 
little,  in  order  to  fulfil  public  expectation. 

^neas  is  too  prudent  to  remain  long  at  the  foot  of 
^tna.      Besides,  he   has  to  avoid   the   anger   of   the 

1  III.  571.  -  Sen.,  Ep^sL,  79,  5. 

=*  Aulu-Gelle,  XVII.  10  :  In  strcpitu  sonituque  verborum  laboraL 

0 


210  THE   COUNTRY  OF  HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

Cyclops,  who  are  the  inhabitants  of  the  country,' and 
of  Polyphemus,  their  chief,  who  would  like  to  avenge 
upon  him  the  harm  done  him  by  Ulysses.     So  he  starts 
again  as  soon  as  possible.     The  Trojan  ships  pass  quite 
close  to  these  immense  blocks  of  lava  near  Aci  Castello, 
which  were  flung  into  the  sea  by  the  volcano.     The 
people  call  them  "  scogli  cW  Ciclopi,"  and  suppose  them  to 
be  fragments  of  rock  hurled  by  Polyphemus  after  the 
escaping  Ulysses.     For  my  part,  when  I  viewed  their 
dark  mass  covered  by  white  foam  from  afar,  and  domi- 
nating the  waves  by  more  than  60  metres,  I  thought 
I  had  the  Cyclops  themselves  before  my  eyes,  advanc- 
ing into  the  sea  in  pursuit  of  ^neas.     "  We  see  them 
erect,"  says  Virgil,  "  threatening  us  with  their  fierce 
eyes,  and  raising  their  proud  heads  to  the   heavens. 
Fearful  assemblage  !  {concilium  horrendum  !)  "  ^    ^neas 
escapes,  thanks  to  his  oars,     ^tna  recedes  little  by 
little  on  the  horizon ;  Pantagia  is  passed ;  the  Gulf  of 
Maegara  and  of  Thassus  "  prostrated  to  the  sun  ; "  ^  and 
they  only  stop  a  little  further  on,  "  at  the  spot  where 
an  island  advances  into  the  sea  of  Sicily,  opposite  Plem- 
myrium,  watered  on  all  sides  by  the  waves.     This  isle 
bears  a  name  illustrious  in  history  ;  the  first  inhabitants 
called  it  Ortygia."     It  is  here  that   Syracuse   began. 
Later  on,  the  immense  town  overflowed  upon  the  con- 
tinent.   It  advanced,  without  stopping,  into  the  plain  as 
far  as  the  heights  of  the  Epipolae,  and  to  the  fort  of  Eury- 
alus;    but  the  island  always  remained  the  heart  and 
centre  of  the  great  city.     Hieron  had  built  his  palace 
there  ;  Denys  crowded  it  with  magnificent  monuments  ; 

J  JEn.,  III.  688.  '  Ibid,,  689  :  Thapsumque  jacentem. 


.ENEAS   IN   SICILY.  211 

and  it  was  the  residence  of  the  Eoman  praijtors.  Now 
the  entire  city,  like  Tarentum,  is  included  within  its 
ancient  acropolis.  There,  imprisoned  on  all  sides  by 
the  waves,  defended  by  the  bastions  of  Charles  the 
Fifth,  with  its  narrow  streets,  its  old  houses,  its  monu- 
mental windows,  it  carries  the  traveller  some  centuries 
backward,  and  gives  him  the  pleasure  of  forgetting  for 
a  moment  the  trivialities  of  modern  towns.  Of  all 
these  curiosities,  Virgil  only  mentions  one — that  which 
Syracuse  owes  to  Nature,  and  which  must  have  been 
with  her  from  all  time.  This  is  the  fountain  of 
Arethusa,  about  which  the  Greeks  told  so  many 
wonderful  tales.  We  may  well  think  that  pious 
^neas,  hurried  though  he  be,  stops  on  this  shore  to 
offer  his  prayers  at  the  sacred  spring.  Modern  travel- 
lers do  as  he  did,  nor  fail  in  passing  to  go  and  see 
Arethusa.  A  few  years  since  they  underwent  a  great 
disillusion  in  visiting  it.  It  was  then  very  much 
neglected,  and  the  women  of  the  town,  who  did  not  at 
all  resemble  Nausicaa,  used  to  come  without  ceremony 
and  wash  their  clothes  there.  It  has  since  been  repaired 
and  we  see  it  in  about  the  same  condition  as  it  was 
in  the  time  of  VirgiL  It  is  a  semicircular  basin,  in 
which  papyrus  grows,  and  which  a  narrow  jetty  separ- 
ates from  the  sea.  It  is  filled  with  limpid  water,  and 
contains  fish  of  all  kinds  and  aquatic  birds  of  every 
colour  in  abundance.  The  day  I  visited  it  the  sirocco 
blew  violently,  and  the  waves  broke  foaming  against 
the  shore.  I  had  truly  a  legendary  scene  before  my 
eyes :  Neptune,  furious  against  a  poor  nymph  who 
resisted  him,  trying  to  force  the  quiet  refuge 
whither  she  had  retired.     I  must  say  that  Arethusa 


212     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

did  not  appear  at  all  troubled  by  this  uproar.  While 
the  sea  raged,  the  fishes  continued  to  swim  after  the 
bits  of  bread  which  children  threw  them,  and  the 
swans  sailed  gravely  among  the  tufts  of  papyrus.  Yet 
when  I  heard  the  dull  noise  of  the  billows,  and  saw  the 
plumes  of  foam  rising  above  the  jetty,  I  could  not  help 
fearing  that  the  sea  would  prove  the  stronger.  Looking 
at  the  narrow  tongue  of  land  by  which  the  sacred  spring 
is  protected,  I  trembled  for  it,  and  was  tempted  to 
repeat  the  cry  of  Virgil : 

"  Doris  amara  suam  non  intennisceat  undam  !  "  i 

On  leavmg  Ortygia,  Virgil  passes  the  promontory  of 

Pachinum,  one  of  the  three  which  give  Sicily  its  form. 

He   then  skirts   all   the   coast   parallel  to   the   shores 

of  Africa,   on   which   the   Greeks   had   planted   their 

colonies.     It  was  a  country  illustrious  among  all,  and 

had  held  a  great  place  in  the  history  of  humanity.    But 

J^neas  passes  quickly  by  it.    He  tells  us  he  is  impelled 

by  a  favourable  wind,  and  he  must  profit  by  it  to  go 

whither  the  gods  send  him.     He  has  only  time  to  point 

out  a  few  of  the  towns  he  sees  in  passing.     There  is 

Camarina,    Gela,   Agrigentum,   "  which    rises    on    the 

height,  and   shows  the   traveller  its  vast   ramparts " ; 

there    is    Selinus,    with    its    belt    of    palms ;    there, 

finally,  is  Lilybseum,  "  which  hides  beneath  its  waves 

perfidious  rocks."     In  these  rapidly  composed  lines,  I 

see  nothing  to  retain  but  the  picture  of  Agrigentum : 

^^Arduus  inde  Acragas  ostentat  nutxima  longe 

Mcenia."  ^ 

Euins  still  remain  of  those  immense   walls  that  sur- 

1  Egly  X,  5.  2  ^^^^^  jii,  703. 


^.NEAS  m   SICILY.  213 

prised  Virgil ;  and  beside  large  blocks  of  stone  overthrown  / 
by  time  we  may  see  a  series  of  temples,  half  destroyed, 
which,  when  they  were  intact,  formed  a  sort  of  crown 
to  the  ramparts.  The  effect  mnst  have  been  striking 
when  there  were  seen  from  below  :  first  a  line  of  temples 
and  walls,  and  then  the  town,  with  its  admirable  edifices 
mounting  stepwise  to  the  rock  of  Minerva  {Rupe 
Atlienm)  and  to  the  acropolis.  Virgil's  verse  gives 
us  a  sufficiently  good  idea  of  this  spectacle,  and  the 
precision  of  his  description  shows  us  that  he  had 
Agrigentum  before  his  eyes  when  he  wrote.  He  seems 
to  have  cared  little  to  know  whether  at  the  time  of 
the  Trojan  War  it  was  as  he  described  it.  This  was  ^ 
a  point  to  trouble  an  historian  or  an  archasologist,  and 
touched  him  little.  Some  rigorous  critics  have  blamed 
him  for  this,  while  others  have  sought  to  defend  him,  by 
saying  that,  in  fact,  Agrigentum  was  not  founded  until 
several  centuries  after  the  voyage  of  iEneas ;  but  that 
there  was  already,  upon  the  spot  where  the  Greek  city 
was  to  rise,  a  little  town  of  Sicilians,  and  that  the  poet 
means  to  speak  of  the  latter,  though  he  gives  them  the 
name  of  the  former.  This  dispute  is  of  little  importance ; 
but  here  we  are  at  any  rate  certain  that  Virgil  visited 
what  in  his  day  remained  of  the  Greek  cities  along  the 
African  sea.  They  could  not  have  been  in  quite  the  same 
state  as  that  in  which  we  see  them  to-day.  Camarina 
and  Gela  had  not  entirely  disappeared,  and  the  columns 
of  the  Temple  of  Selinus  did  not  strew  the  ground. 
Yet  Strabo  plainly  states  "  that  the  coast  extending 
from  Cape  Pachinum  to  Lilybseum  is  deserted,  and 
that  one  finds  but  few  remains  of  the  settlements 
which  the  Greeks  established  there."     We  should  like 


214  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

to  know  the  effect  they  produced  upon  Virgil,  and 
the  thoughts  that  arose  in  his  mind  as  he  passed 
through  the  streets  of  these  abandoned  cities,  and 
wandered  in  those  large  empty  spaces  whence  life 
had  withdrawn.  He  has  nowhere  told  us  so,  yet  I  do  not 
think  it  would  be  rash  to  imagine  them.  He  called  up 
before  his  eyes  the  history  of  these  unhappy  cities,  torn 
by  factions,  passing  from  extreme  liberty  to  the  hardest 
servitude,  always  ready  in  their  domestic  quarrels  to 
invoke  the  aid  of  the  foreigner,  and  destroying  each 
other  without  pity.  He  doubtless  said  to  himself  that 
a  nation  is  not  made  solely  to  build  admirable  monu- 
ments, to  have  musicians,  sculptors,  painters,  poets; 
that,  above  all,  it  must  be  capable  of  wisdom,  modera- 
tion, and  discipline,  and  that  it  must  know  how  to  con- 
duct itself,  to  keep  peace  within,  and  live  on  terms  of 
amity  with  its  neighbours.  Then  his  mind  reverted  to 
his  own  country,  so  poor  in  art  and  literature ;  and  I 
suppose  that  he  must  have  felt  reconciled  to  this 
inferiority  w^ien  he  saw  it  possess  in  such  a  high 
degree  the  political  qualities  whose  absence  had  ruined 
the  Greeks :  respect  for  authority,  the  acquiescence  in 
leadership,  forgetfulness  of  private  quarrels  in  face  of 
a  public  enemy,  and  strict  union  of  the  citizens  for  a 
common  purpose.  It  seemed  to  him  then  that,  however 
great  the  glory  of  Greece,  Kome  in  other  respects  could 
bear  comparison  with  her,  and  that  it  was  surely  a  great 
nation  which,  by  knowing  how  to  govern  itself,  had  be- 
come worthy  to  govern  the  world.  This  is  the  sentiment 
expressed  by  him  with  admirable  brilliancy  in  those 
lines  of  the  Sixth  Book,  which  some  critics,  I  know 
not  why,  have  reproached  him  with.      "  Others  will 


iENEAS  IX   SICILY.  215 

know  better  how  to  animate  bronze  and  make  it  supple, 
to  cut  living  figures  in  marble ;  and  they  will  speak 
more  eloquently.  Thou,  Eoman,  remember  that  it  is 
thy  glory  to  command  the  universe,  to  force  the  nations 
to  keep  peace,  to  spare  the  vanquished,  to  humble  the 
proud — these  are  the  arts  which  thou  must  cultivate." 

"  Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  cera  .... 
Tu  regere  imjJerio  jpojiidos^  Romane,  memento  /"  i 

I  cannot  but  think  that,  in  visiting  the  ruins  of 
the  Greek  cities  of  Sicily,  the  contrast  between 
the  two  countries,  between  their  contrary  qualities 
and  their  different  destinies,  must  have  struck  Virgil 
more  forcibly,  and  that  it  inspired  these  beautiful 
lines. 

We  have  now  come  to  the  end  of  Eneas'  first  voyage 
in  Sicily.  From  Lilybseum  he  directs  his  course 
"  towards  the  sad  shore  of  Drepanum,"  ^  and  there,  at 
the  moment  when  he  thinks  the  end  of  his  labours  is 
approaching,  he  loses  his  father.  The  legend  fixed  the 
burial-place  of  Anchises  in  different  spots,  and  his  tomb 
was  shown  in  almost  all  the  countries  where  the  Trojans 


1  ^n. ,  V.  848. 

^  III.  707 '  Drcpani  illcctabilis  ora.  Does  he  only  call  it  so 
because  he  lost  his  father  there  ?  Commentators  bid  us  remark  that 
this  coast  is  marshy  and  sterile.  For  the  ancients  it  had  been  a 
desolate  country  ever  since  the  combat  between  Eryx  and  Hercules, 
and  it  long  kept  this  appearance.  Now  everything  is  in  a  state  of 
transformation.  In  the  lower  part,  salt-pits  have  been  established 
which  seem  very  flourishing,  and  the  surrounding  plain  is  becoming 
covered  with  new  houses.  Near  the  port  of  Trapani  an  attempt  has 
even  been  made  to  plant  a  garden,  whose  trees  courageously  resist  the 
north-west  wind  which  bends  their  heads. 


216  THE   COUNTKY   OF   IIOEACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

had  stopped.  Virgil  was  therefore  free  to  make  him  die 
as  he  liked.  It  was  to  his  purpose  to  let  him  accompany 
his  son  as  long  as  possible,  since  it  suited  him  to  place 
at  the  side  of  the  pious  TEneas  a  kind  of  interpreter  of 
the  gods,  to  explain  their  oracles  and  communicate 
their  will.  But  he  could  not  keep  him  any  longer 
without  serious  inconvenience.  We  have  just  got  to 
the  moment  when  a  tempest  is  about  to  throw  ^neas 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  where  he  will  meet  with  the 
hospitality  of  Dido,  and  pass  the  whole  of  a  long 
winter  in  pleasure.^  What  kind  of  a  figure  would 
the  virtuous  Anchises  have  made  in  the  midst  of  this 
amorous  adventure  ?  He  could  not  have  prevented  it, 
since  the  gods  consented^jji;)r  permitted  it  without  com- 
promising the  dignity'mhis  character :  so  it  was  better 
for  him  to  be  absei^^  Virgil  therefore  lets  him 
opportunely  vanisn.      ^^ 

^  After  his  father's  death,  ^neas  leaves  Sicily,  though 
not  for  ever.  He  is  to  return  a  few  months  later,  on 
his  flight  from  Carthage,  and  sojourn  there  during  the 
whole  of  the  Fifth  Book. 

IV. 

KETURX  OF  iENEAS  TO  SICILY— FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  j^NEID 
—  MOUNT  ERYX  —  TEMPLE  OF  VENUS  ERYCINA  — 
FUNERAL  GAMES  IN  HONOUR  OF  ANCHISES — COURSE 
OF  THE  SHIPS — BURNING  OF  THE  FLEET— SEGESTA — 
DEPARTURE  OF  ^NEAS  FOR  ITALY. 

It  has  often  been    remarked  that  the  Fifth  Book  of 
the  uEndd  is  not  very  closely  connected  with  the  rest  of 

^  ^11.,  IV.  193  :  Hicmen  luxu  quamlonga  fovcre. 


^.NEAS   IN   SICILY.  217 

the  poem.  It  might  be  suppressed  without  loss,  if  not 
to  the  charm  of  the  work,  at  least  to  the  development 
of  the  action.  We  have  nothing  but  ceremonies  and 
spectacles,  and  the  desperate  struggle  of  a  man  to  accom- 
plish a  divine  mission  against  adverse  divinities,  which 
is  the  subject  of  the  yEneid,  seems  to  rest  for  a  while, 
^neas,  obeying  the  orders  of  Jupiter,  has  just 
abandoned  Dido,  and  is  steering  towards  Italy. 
Suddenly  the  breeze  freshens,  and  the  pilot,  who  soon 
gets  frightened,  declares  that  he  dares  not  continue  his 
course  with  so  threatening  a  sky.  The  prudent  ^neas 
easily  allows  himself  to  be  moved  by  tliese  misgivings, 
and  consents  to  stop  on  his  way.  Sicily  is  near.  It  is 
a  beloved  country,  ruled  over  by  a  Trojan,  old  Acestus, 
and  contains  the  tomb  of  Anchises.  It  is  nearly  a 
year  since  Anchises  died ;  and^^  the  opportunity  is 
offered  of  celebrating  this  annive^ry,  it  must  be  taken 
advantage  of. 

Here  then  is  the  Trojan  fleet  returned  to  the  port  of 
Drepanum,  Tlie  part  of  Sicily  where  ^^neas  stops 
has  not  had  quite  the  same  lot  as  the  rest  of  the  isle. 
It  early  escaped  the  Greek  domination,  and  was 
occupied  by  the  Carthaginians,  who  were  its  masters 
for  more  than  two  centuries.  It  is  clear  that  this  long 
sojourn  of  the  Semites  must  have  exercised  some 
influence  over  the  ancient  inhabitants,  although  it 
is  now  difficult  to  distinguish  it.  After  the  first 
resistance,  the  Greeks  of  this  part  of  the  country  had 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  the  conquerors,  in 
spite  of  the  differences  of  manner  and  of  race,  and  it 
was  arranged  to  live  together,  as  the  Sicilians  and 
Arabs  agreed  to   do   in  the  Middle  Ages.     A  tei^era 


218  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

preserved  in  the  museum  of  Palermo  represents  on  one 
side  two  hands  clasped  together,  and  on  the  other 
bears  an  inscription  which  informs  us  that  Imilcon 
Hannibal,  son  of  Imilcon,  has  made  a  pact  of  hospitality 
with  Lison,  son  of  Diogenetes,  and  his  descendants.^ 
Contracts  of  this  kind  could  not  have  been  uncommon 
between  the  two  peoples.  It  is  also  probable  that  the 
conquerors,  although  their  minds  were  not  turned  that 
way,  did  not  entirely  resist  the  seduction  of  Greek  art. 
When  they  took  Segesta,  they  carried  off  a  bronze 
statue  of  Diana  which  passed  for  a  masterpiece. 
"Transported  into  Africa,"  says  Cicero,  "the  goddess 
only  exchanged  altars  and  adorers.  Her  honours 
followed  her  into  this  new  abode,  and  thanks  to  her 
incomparable  beauty,  she  found  again  among  the 
enemy  the  worship  she  had  received  at  Segesta."  ^ 
Carthage  dominated  in  all  the  western  part  of  Sicily ; 
but  in  order  not  to  weaken  herself  by  scattering  her 
forces,  she  had  fixed  herself  strongly  in  three  important 
cities :  at  Lilybaeum  (Marsala),  at  Drepanum  (Trapani), 
and  at  Panormos  (Palermo).  Above  Drepanum,  in  the 
centre  of  the  coast  occupied  by  the  Carthaginians,  rises 
Eryx  (now  Monte  San-Juliano),  which  they  had 
made  one  of  their  chief  citadels.  We  must  first  go 
over  it  and  describe  it,  for  all  the  action  of  the  Fifth 
Book  takes  place  around  this  mountain. 

The  reputation  of  Mount  Eryx  was  very  great  in 
ancient  times.  Although  it  barely  rises  800  metres  above 
the  sea,  and  although  there  is  in  Sicily  many  a  peak. 


^  Salinas,  Guida  del  museo  di  Palermo,  p.  40. 
2  II.,  Verr.,  IV.  83. 


^.NEAS   IN   SICILY.  219 

without  counting  ^tna,  greatly  exceeding  it  in  height, 
it  is  of  so  fine  a  form,  so  regularly  cut,  so  well  posed, 
and  is  seen  from  all  sides  to  so  much  advantage,  that 
its  name  occurs  of  itself  to  Virgil  when  he  wants  to 
give  us  the  idea  of  a  high  mountain :  Quantus  Athos 
aut  quantus  Eryx !  ^  Access  to  it  is  now  easy.  A 
fine  winding  road  leads  to  Trapani,  and  the  summit  is 
reached  in  three  or  four  hours.  One  is  surprised  to  find 
there  certainly  one  of  the  most  curious  little  towns 
that  can  be  seen.  Shut  in  by  solid  walls  which  go 
back  to  the  most  remote  times,  defended  by  towers  and 
bastions,  San  Juliano  contains  nearly  four  thousand 
inhabitants  within  its  gates.  The  town  has  an  antique 
and  severe  look,  and  very  little  has  been  done  to 
improve  it.  As  we  pass  through  these  narrow  steep 
streets,  bordered  by  little  houses  with  low  doors  and 
few  windows,  we  feel  the  bitter  north-east  wind  that 
blows  even  on  the  finest  days,  and  reflect  that  in 
winter  the  weather  here  must  often  be  very  rigorous, 
and  we  ask  ourselves  how  men  could  have  been  tempted 
to  place  their  dwelling  so  high.  Yet  this  spot  must  have 
been  peopled  very  early  in  the  world's  history,  for 
remains  of  flint  weapons  have  been  found  here,  proving 
that  it  had  inhabitants  before  the  use  of  metals  was 
known.  An  isolated  mountain,  easy  to  defend,  whose 
foundations  are  planted  in  the  sea,  and  which  is  provided 
at  its  summit  with  inexhaustible  springs  of  water,  offered 
a  sure  asylum  to  those  who  wished  to  place  their  lives 
and  fortunes  beyond  danger  of  sudden  attack.     Later  on 

1^71.,  XII.  701. 


220  THE  COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

it  served  as  a  fortress  to  all  the  conquerors  of  Sicily, 
and  the  Greeks,  the  Carthaginians,  and  the  Eomans 
disputed  its  possession  with  fury.  Its  inhabitants  were 
more  numerous  than  ever  amidst  the  violence  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  it  is  then  that,  in  order  to  make  room 
for  them,  the  houses  had  to  be  crowded  together  one 
upon  the  other,  as  we  see  them.  Now,  when  men  can 
live  without  danger  in  the  plain,  the  mountain  is  gradu- 
ally becoming  depopulated,  and  the  time  is  not  far 
distant  when  the  almost  deserted  little  town  will  only 
be  frequented  by  the  curious  who  visit  the  country  in 
search  of  memorials  of  antiquity. 

What  chiefly  draws  them  hither  is  the  renown  of  the 
famous  Temple  of  Venus  which  formerly  crowned  the 
mountain.  They  will  no  longer  find  it.  The  temple  has 
perished  entirely,  and  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  do  more 
than  recognise  its  site.  A  little  above  San  Juliano 
extends  a  broad  plateau,  reached  by  a  small  walk 
planted  with  trees  and  bordered  with  flowers.  This 
plateau  must  originally  have  been  very  narrow.  It  was 
increased  in  extent  by  enormous  substructions,  which 
sometimes  sink  very  low,  and  rest  on  projections^  of 
the  rock.  Works  of  this  kind  were  frequent  among  the 
ancients,  who  did  not  recoil  from  any  labour  in  order 
to  fix  the  bases  of  their  edifices  solidly.  But  this  one 
struck  even  the  ancients  themselves  by  its  vast  propor- 
tions, and,  not  knowing  its  architect,  they  attributed  it 
to  Daedalus,  the  legendary  artist,  just  as  we  sometimes 
talk  about  monuments  being  Cyclopean.  These  kinds 
of  expressions  teach  nothing,  but  they  are  convenient  to 
disguise  ionorance.  We  are  now  farther  advanced  than 
the  ancients,  and  we  can  say  what  people  built  at  least 


yENEAS  IX   SICILY.  221 

the  lower  layers  of  these  immense  walls.  M.  Salinas,  a 
distinguished  Palermitan  archaeologist,  has  discovered 
that  the  large  blocks  of  stone  on  which  the  walls  rest 
bear  letters,  and  that  these  letters  are  Phoenician.^  We 
have  thus  a  proof  that  the  first  works  to  fix  the  founda- 
tion of  the  temple  and  of  the  town  were  carried  out  by 
the  Carthaginians.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  Mount 
Eryx  was  peopled  long  before  their  arrival  in  Sicily, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  us  from  believing  that  on 
the  site  on  which  they  raised  their  sumptuous  buildings, 
there  already  existed  a  modest  sanctuary  built  by  the 
old  inhabitants.  And  this  confirms  Virgil's  account  in 
every  respect.  He  shows,  on  the  approach  of  ^neas, 
the  people  of  the  country,  who  from  the  top  of  the 
mountain  have  their  eyes  fixed  upon  the  sea,  observing 
from  afar  the  unknown  guests  whom  the  waves  are 
bringing  them.  He  depicts  them  as  rough  and  half 
savage,  as  they  must  have  been,  "holding  javelins  in 
their  hands,  and  covered  with  the  skin  of  a  Libyan 
bear."  2  As  for  the  old  sanctuary  which  preceded 
the  Phoenician  temjjle,  he  attributes  its  foundation 
to  ^Eneas  himself.  At  the  moment  of  leaving,  "the 
hero,"  he  tells  us,  "on  the  crown  of  Eryx  raises  to 
Venus,  his  mother,  a  sacred  habitation  near  the  stars." 

The  divinity  of  Eryx  had  the  advantage  of  being 
recognised  and  honoured  by  all  the  peoples  who  navi- 
gated the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  Under  differ- 
ent names,  the  Phoenican,  Greek,  Etruscan,  and  Roman 
sailors  paid  homage  to  a  goddess  of  the  sea,  whom  they 

1  Salinas,  Le  mura  fenicie  diErice,  an  extract  from  Notizie  degli  scavi 
April  1883. 

'  yEn.,  V.  35,  et  seq. 


222  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HOEACE   AXD   VIRGIL. 

called  on  in  times  of  danger,  and  to  whom  they  believed 
they  owed  their  safety.  Whether  they  named  her 
Astarte,  Aphrodite,  or  Venus,  she  was  in  fact  the  same 
for  all.  They  gave  her  the  same  attributes ;  they  acknow- 
ledged in  her  the  same  power.  In  her  sanctuary  on 
Eryx  there  were  found,  side  by  side  with  Greek  and 
Latin  inscriptions,  ex-votos  in  which  Phoenicians  or 
Carthaginians  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of 
Astarte,  "  who  gives  long  life."  As  all  equally  honoured 
the  goddess,  it  came  to  pass  that,  in  spite  of  their  furious 
rivalries,  her  temple  was  never  laid  waste,  and  went  un- 
harmed through  these  terrible  wars  in  which  the  com- 
batants allowed  themselves  every  license.  This  happy 
fortune  augmented  the  credit  enjoyed  by  it  among  the 
devout.  It  was  the  more  extraordinary  from  the  circum- 
stance that  the  Temple  of  Eryx  was  considered  one  of 
the  richest  in  the  world.  Thucydides  relates  that  the 
inhabitants  of  Segesta  took  the  Athenian  envoys  thither 
when  they  wished  to  deceive  them  as  to  the  resources 
at  their  disposal,  and  that  they  made  them  believe  they 
were  the  masters  of  all  the  treasures  deposited  there.^ 
Among  the  gifts  presented  to  the  goddess,  Elienus 
particularly  mentions  rings  and  earrings,^  which  reminds 
us  of  the  Madonna  di  Trapani,  whose  church  is  just  at 
the  foot  of  Mount  Eryx.  She  is  a  miraculous  Virgin, 
in  whose  favour  many  women  of  fashion  have  despoiled 
themselves  of  a  portion  of  their  ornaments.  She  is  a 
overladen  with  diadems,  necklaces,  bracelets,  jewels, 
which  sparkle  in  the  light  of  the  tapers,  and  even 
wears,  hooked  to  the  bottom  of  her  dress,  a  number  of 

1  Thucydides,  VI.  46  ^DeAnima,  X.  50. 


^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  223 

watches  of  every  age  and  style,  that  would  fill  a  collec- 
tor's heart  with  joy.  According  to  the  report  of  Elienus, 
I  suppose  that  something  similar  must  have  been  found 
in  the  Temple  of  Venus  Erycina,  so  it  was  thought  that 
the  goddess  was  well  pleased  with  so  rich  a  dwelling- 
place,  and  loved  to  abide  there.  It  was  one  of  her 
favourite  residences.  Theocritus  says,  in  invoking  her : 
"  0  thou  who  dwellest  in  Golgos,  Idalia,  or  on  high 
Eryx."  ^  The  people  of  the  country  asserted  that  she 
only  left  it  once  a  year,  in  order  to  make  a  tour 
in  Africa.  Her  absence  was  known  by  the  sign 
that  not  a  single  dove  was  seen  around  Eryx.  She 
took  them  all  with  her  on  her  journey.  Nine  days 
afterwards  she  came  back,  and  the  doves  with  her. 
Her  departure  and  her  return  were  the  occasions  of 
brilliant  ceremonies. 

The  worship  of  Venus  Erycina  had  the  sensual  and 
voluptuous  character  usual  in  the  religions  of  the  East. 
The  goddess  was  served  by  young  and  beautiful  slaves, 
called  in  Greek  hierodules.  In  the  Temple  of  Aphrodite, 
at  Corinth,  there  were  a  thousand  of  these,  who,  when 
ships'  captains  tarried  there  a  few  days,  made  them 
forget  the  weariness  of  their  long  voyages.  It  must 
have  been  the  same  at  Eryx.  Passing  sailors  came 
there  to  celebrate  Venus  with  those  transports  and 
excesses  which  heighten  the  joys  of  life  in  people 
always  in  danger  of  death.  On  one  of  the  slopes  of 
the  mountain  a  great  heap  of  broken  ampkorcc  has 
been  found,  whose  handles  bear  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Carthaginian  inscriptions.     It  is  likely  that  the  mariners 


XV.  100. 


224  THE   COUNTBY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

of  all  countries  who  climbed  Eryx  brought  their  wine 
with  them,  and  drank  it  up  there  in  merry  company. 
The  heirodulcs  helped  them  to  spend  the  money  they 
had  laboriously  amassed  in  the  course  of  their  dangerous 
voyages.     Thus  some  of   these  women  soon  managed 
to  make  a   fortune.     Cicero   speaks   of   one   of  them, 
named  Agonis,    first  a  slave,  and  then  a  freedwoman 
of  Venus,  who  became  very  rich,  and  who  possessed, 
in  particular,   slave  musicians  who  were  a  source  of 
envy,  and  were  at  last  taken  away  from  her.^     These 
pleasures  of  all  kinds  which  were  found  on  Eryx  make 
it  easy  to  understand  the  renown  it  must  have  enjoyed 
among  seafaring   people  all   over   the   Mediterranean. 
The  temple,  poised  on  the  top  of  the  mountain,  was 
seen   from   afar,  like   a  beacon.      I  suppose  that  the 
pilot  or  the  captain  who  had  just  made  a  long  voyage 
full  of  fatigues  and  perils  felt  his  heart  beat  with  joy 
when,  coming  from  Africa  or  Italy,  he  saw  this  place 
of  delights  appear  on  the  horizon,  where  he  was  about 
to  forget  his  hardships  for  a  moment,  and  that  when  he 
left  Drepanum,  he  must  have  kept  his  eyes  long  fixed 
upon   the   mountain    which   called   up   in   him    such 
pleasant  memories.     However,  it  was  not  only  people 
of  this  sort  who  came  to  honour  Venus  Erycina  in  her 
sanctuary ;  for  sometimes  visitors  of  more  importance 
were   seen   there.     Diodorus   tells    us    that   the    most 
important  magistrates  of  the  Eoman  people,  consuls, 
and  praetors,  when  their  functions  called  them  this  way, 
mounted  to  the  Temple  of  Eryx.     He  adds  that  their 
forgetting  their  gravity  for  a  moment,  and  rendering 

'^  Divin.  in  Ccecil.,  17. 


.ENEAS   IN    SICILY.  225 

homage  to  the  goddess  by  lending  themselves  to  the 
pleasantries  and  games  of  the  women  who  served  her, 
was  appreciated.  They  found  it  an  easy  manner  of 
performing  their  devotions.^ 

Now  the  plateau  of  Eryx  is  deserted.  The  temple 
of  Venus,  the  residence  of  the  hiewdules,  all  those 
edifices  consecrated  to  pleasure,  have  disappeared. 
These  spots,  where  for  so  long  festive  songs  resounded, 
have  become  silent.  Wliat  remains  to  them  is  the 
admirable  view  enjoyed  from  the  top  of  the  mountain, 
the  series  of  smiling  plains  and  hills  following  each 
other  to  beyond  Cape  San  Vito,  that  immense  extent  of 
sea  rolling  out  before  us  as  far  as  the  coasts  of  Africa. 

Yet  do  not  let  us  look  so  far,  but  content 
ourselves  with  a  more  restricted  horizon.  For  we 
must  keep  our  eyes  fixed  upon  this  narrow  strip  of 
land  stretching  at  our  feet  between  the  mountain  and 
the  sea.  It  was  chosen  by  Virgil  for  the  scene  of  his 
Fifth  Book,  and  from  the  heights  on  which  we  are 
standing  we  are  about  to  follow  its  different  incidents 
without  trouble. 

We  have  seen,  higher  up,  that  what  determined 
^neas  to  stop  a  second  time  in  Italy  was  the  oppor- 
tunity offered  to  visit  the  tomb  of  Anchises,  and  render 
him  fresh  honours.  As  soon  as  he  has  disembarked, 
he  assembles  his  soldiers,  and  from  the  top  of  a  mound, 


^The  women  of  £ryx  are  considered  the  most  beautiful  in  all  Sicil}-, 
and  this  is  all  that  the  country  retains  of  the  protection  of  Venus. 
They  already  had  this  reputation  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Aiab 
traveller,  Ben  Djobair,  who  makes  this  statement,  adds:  "May  God 
make  them  captives  of  the  Mussulmans  !  " 


226     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

like   an   emperor,  makes   them  one    of  those    solemn 
harangues  so  pleasing  to  Eoman  gravity  : 

"  Dardanidce  magni,  genus  alto  a  sanguine  divum,^'  ^  etc. 

In  this  speech  he  announces  to  them  the  series  of 

festivals  he   is  preparing    in    honour    of    his   father's 

memory,  and  everything  is  carried  out  in  acccordance 

with  his  word.     First  they  visit  the  tomb  of  Anchises, 

to  scatter  flowers  there,  and  pour  out  libations  of  milk, 

wine,  and  blood.     The  ashes  of  him  who  was  honoured 

with  the  love  of  Venus,  and  who  is  the  father  of  ^neas, 

are  not  those  of  an  ordinary  being.     He  is  a  god,  and 

makes  the  fact  well  known  to  his  son  by  calling  up  the 

serpent  which  issues  from  his  tomb,  and  comes  to  taste 

the   meats  consecrated  to   him.      ^neas  does  not   at 

first  grasp  the  meaning  of  this  marvellous  apparition,  and 

asks  himself  whether  he  has  just   seen  the   familiar 

genius  of  the  place,  or  whether  it  is  a  kind  of  domestic 

demon  who  serves  his  father  in  the  other  life.     At  last 

he  understands,  and  sacrifices  sheep,  swine,  and  bulls 

to  him,  whom  he  regards  as  a  new  divinity.     This  is  a 

timid  and  somewhat  confused  sketch  of  apotheosis.     A 

few  years  later,  when  Augustus  died  and  was  proclaimed 

a  god  by  the  Senate,  the  ceremonies  of  his  funeral  were 

minutely  regulated,  and  the  ritual  of  imperial  apotheosis 

was  fixed.      "Soldiers   with  their  arms,  and   knights 

with  their  insignia,  running  round  the  funeral  pyre, 

threw  into  it  the  rewards  they  had  received  for  their 

valour.      Then  centurions  approached  and  set  fire  to  it. 

While  it  burned,  an  eagle  rose,  as  if  to  carry  with 

i^?t.,  V.  45. 


^NEAS  IN   SICILY.  227 

it  the  soul  of  the  prince.  These  ceremonies,  it  must 
be  owned,  seem  grander  than  the  libations  of  milk  and 
wine  poured  by  ^neas  on  the  tomb  of  his  father,  and 
the  mysterious  serpent  gliding  from  the  mausoleum; 
but  Virgil  did  not  foresee  what  would  be  done  after 
him,  and  contented  himself,  as  was  his  wont,  with 
appropriating  the  ancient  practices  of  the  national 
religion  to  new  circumstances.  The  funeral  games, 
announced  in  advance  to  the  soldiers  by  ^neas,  take 
place  nine  days  after  the  sacrifice.  Such  was  the 
usage,  as  Servius  tells  us.^  The  trumpet  gives  the 
signal ;  the  Trojans  and  the  people  of  the  country 
hasten  to  assemble  in  order  to  assist  at  them,  and  the 
poet  employs  more  than  five  hundred  lines,  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  Fifth  Book,  in  their  description.  In  order 
to  understand  why  he  gives  them  so  great  a  place  in  his 
work,  we  must  recall  that  which  they  held  in  the 
lives  of  the  Eomans  of  his  time.  Since  politics 
had  become  indifferent  to  them,  they  had  grown 
to  be  their  chief  interest,  and  the  amphitheatre  or  the 
circus  occupied  the  time  left  free  by  the  forum.  In 
order  to  please  them,  it  had  been  necessary  to  multiply 
their  games  without  measure,  and  in  the  first  century 
of  the  Empire,  M'hen  those  which  seemed  useless  had 
been  suppressed,  they  still  took  up  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  days  of  the  year.  So  Virgil  was  certain  of 
charming  his  readers  by  entertaining  them  with  that 
which  was  their  most  ardent  passion.  He  also  found 
in  them  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  imitate  Homer, 

^Servius,  iii  JEn.,  V.  64  :  UmU  etlam  Ixidi  qui  in  Jionorcm  mortu- 
orum  celebrantiir  novcmdlales  0,lcuntur. 


228  THE    COUNTRY    OF    HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

who  had  also  taken  pleasure  in  describing  at  length 

the   games   instituted   by  Achilles   at   the  funeral  of 

Patroclus.     This  part  of  Virgil's  work  is  chiefly  copied 

from  the  Iliad  ;  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  he  knows  how 

to  maintain  an  air  of  independence,  even  in  the  midst 

of  the  most  exact  translations.     He  assimilates  what  he 

reproduces,  and,  in  spite  of  the  empire  exercised  over  him 

by  his  great  predecessor,  he  preserves  the  character  of 

his  own  genius.      There   are,  however,  two   of   these 

pictures  which  belong  to   him   entirely.      Firstly,  he 

has  replaced  the  chariot  race  by  that  of  the  ships.     It 

is  easy    to    see    how   the    idea  of    this    change   was 

suggested  to  him.     The  Trojans,  who  had  been  sailing 

about  for  seven  years,  could  not  have  had  many  horses  ^ 

at  their  disposal,  and,  in  any  case,  they  had  not  had 

opportunities  of  practising  their  management.     As  they 

have  only  applied  themselves  to  the  handling  of  their 

ships,   it  is  in   this   species   of    exercise  that   it   was 

natural  to  make  them  contend  with  each  other.     The 

chariot  races  were  common  ground,  which  Greek  poetry 

had  hackneyed ;  ship  races  had  been  described  less  often, 

and  they  might  furnish  some  new  descriptions.     The 

other   spectacle   which   Virgil   did   not    borrow    from 

Homer  is   what  is   called  the   "  Trojan  game "  (Indus 

Trojanus),  a  kind  of  carrousel  in  which  the  youth  took 

part   in   games   of   skill  and   strength,  and   to   which 

a  very    venerable    antiquity   was    attributed.      These 

evolutions  of  the  young  folk  before  the  eyes  of  their 

fathers   had   in    themselves   something    graceful    and 


1  Virgil  is  very  careful  to  say  that  the  horses  ridden  by  the  youths 
ill  the  hidus  Trojanus  -were  furuished  by  Acestes, 


yENEAS   IN    SICILY.  229 

touching  which  must  have  pleased  Virgil.  He  knew, 
moreover,  that  in  describing  them  he  was  seconding 
the  designs  of  Augustus,  who  brought  them  into  repute 
again,  doubtless  in  order  to  make  his  grandchildren  shine 
in  them,  and  show  the  people,  in  the  midst  of  ancient 
pomps,  the  future  masters  of  the  Empire.  The  poet 
is  here  faithful  to  his  usual  system,  which  consists  in 
connecting  the  present  with  the  past,  and  restoring  life 
to  these  old  tales  by  animating  them  with  the  passions 
of  his  own  time. 

I  will  not  analyse  these  accounts,  which  could  not 
have  the  same  interest  for  us  that  they  possessed  for 
the  contemporaries  of  Virgil.  Let  it  suffice  to  say 
that  here,  as  everywhere,  the  poet  has  exactly  described 
the  scene  of  his  drama.  From  the  height  of  Eryx, 
one  can  fancy  one  sees  the  various  games  by 
which  ^neas  honoured  the  memory  of  his  father, 
and  enjoy  the  spectacle  of  them.  There  is  first 
the  ship  race,  by  which  the  festival  begins.  The 
starting-point  is  not  given,  but  is  doubtless  some 
mooring  stage  near  the  port  of  Drepanum,  where  they 
had  taken  refuge  during  the  bad  weather.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  place  towards  which  they  are  to  steer 
is  indicated  very  clearly.  "  Amidst  the  waves,  facing 
the  surf-beaten  shore,  stands  forth  a  rock,  by  raging 
billows  scourged  and  hid,  when  winter  storms  obscure 
the  sky.  Silent  in  calm  it  sways  the  placid  flood,  and 
sea-birds  love  to  rest  there  in  the  sun."  ^  I  perceive  it 
a  few  kilometres  from  the  beach,  and  Virgil's  descrip- 
tion has  helped  me  to  recognise  it.     It  is  now  called 


yEn.,  y.   121. 


230  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

the  Isola  d'Asinello.  The  vessels  must  round  this 
little  island,  decorated  for  the  occasion  with  oak 
branches.  This  is  certainly  the  rock  where  Sergestus 
broke  his  oars  and  his  prow.  I  think  I  see  him  trying 
painfully  to  advance  with  his  remaining  sails,  "  like  a 
snake  o'er  which  a  waggon  wheel  has  passed  in  the  middle 
of  the  road,  which  exhausts  itself  in  useless  efforts,  and 
bends  upon  itself,  without  being  able  to  progress  a 
single  step,"  while  the  vessel  of  Mnestheus,  with  its 
panting  rowers  bent  to  the  oar,  passes  before  it  like 
lightning.  This  first  contest  over,  ^Eneas,  who  has 
witnessed  its  varying  fortunes  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  port  of  Drepauum,  proceeds,  skirting  the  shore, 
"to  a  meadow  surrounded  by  a  belt  of  hills  shaded 
by  forests."  It  would  be  easy  to  find,  along  the  slopes 
of  Eryx,  more  than  one  spot  answering  to  Virgil's 
description.  Eryx  does  not  descend  towards  the  sea 
with  a  uniform  slope  ;  but  undulates  to  right  and  left  in 
advancing  ridges  that  enclose  little  verdant  valleys 
nestled  to  the  mountain  side.  To  use  the  poet's 
expression,  these  little  valleys  closely  resemble  the 
circular  part  of  an  ancient  theatre,  and  appear  made 
expressly  for  crowds  desirous  to  assist  conveniently  at 
some  spectacle.  Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  ^neas 
sitting  at  the  end  of  this  species  of  circus,  upon  a  more 
elevated  seat.  Round  about  him,  the  Trojans  and 
Sicilians  place  themselves  as  they  can  upon  the  slopes 
of  the  hills,  and  thence  all  watch  the  foot  race,  the 
palestra,  and  the  archery.^     But  while  all  are  engrossed 

^  The  spot  where  these  different  games  take  place  is  the  same  where 
Anchises  was  buried.  Virgil  says  so,  positively,  in  lines  550  and  602. 
Probably  there  was  some  old  monument  there,  which  the  people  of 
the  country  called  the  Tomb  of  Anchises. 


^^NEAS   IN   SICILY.  231 

ill  the  pleasure  tliey  derive  from  the  complicated  evolu- 
tions of  the  Trojan  game,  the  spectacle  is  cut  short  by 
an  unforeseen  incident.  A  messenger  hastens  up  to 
announce  that  the  women,  who  had  been  left  at  Dre- 
panum,  desperate  at  the  prospect  of  having  to  start  again, 
and  yielding  to  the  bad  advice  of  Juno,  have  set  fire  to 
the  ships.  From  the  spot  where  he  is,  the  port  is  hidden 
from  ^neas,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  see  the  burning 
fleet ;  but  above  the  heights  the  smoke  is  seen  rising 
into  the  air  like  a  cloud.  lulus  first,  and  then  all  the 
Trojans  after  him,  rush  to  quench  the  conflagration. 

Despite  the  promptness  of  the  aid  and  the  help  of 
Jupiter,  all  the  ships  cannot  be  saved.  Some  are  quite 
destroyed,  or  too  much  damaged  to  be  repaired, 
so  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  ^neas  to  take  away  the 
whole  of  his  people  with  him,  and  he  must  make  a 
selection.  The  bravest,  the  most  resolute,  will  alone 
accompany  him ;  as  for  those  "  who  feel  not  the  want 
of  glory,"  ^  they  will  stay  in  Sicily.  He  leaves  the 
women  there,  too,  who  are  worn  out  by  seven  years  of 
exhausting  adventures.  But,  before  departing,  he  sets  to 
work  to  build  them  a  town,  whose  boundary  he  traces 
in  the  Italian  manner,  with  a  plough,  and  which  he 
places  under  the  authority  of  good  Acestus.  This  town 
is  Segesta,  important  in  its  time,  and  which,  in  order 
to  conquer  its  rival  Selinus,  called  the  Athenians 
and  the  Carthaginians  to  its  aid.  It  had  already  much 
declined  when  the  Eomans  became  masters  of  Sicily. 
It  then  remembered  at  .the  right  time  that  it  was  said 
to  have  been  founded  by  iEneas,  and  tried  to  make 


uEn.,  V.  751  ;  Animos  nil  mugnce  laudis  egcntes. 


232  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HOKACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

capital  out  of  its  Trojan  origin.  In  support  of  the 
tradition,  it  showed  an  ancient  chapel  which  it  had 
raised  to  its  founder,  and  recalled  that  two  little  brooks 
which  flow  at  the  end  of  the  valley  had  received  the 
names  of  Simois  and  Scamander.  The  Eomans  received 
its  advances  favourably,  and  looked  on  it  as  an  allied  and 
kindred  town.  They  affected  to  treat  it  Jionourably, 
and  exempted  it  from  taxation,  while  Virgil  celebrated 
its  birth  in  his  poem.  But  these  honours  did  not  stay 
its  decadence ;  under  the  Empire  it  became  more  and 
more  impoverished  and  forlorn,  and  in  the  Middle  Ages 
it  had  entirely  disappeared. 

Yet  people  still  go  to  view  the  site  it  occupied ;  for 
if  the  town  exists  no  more,  two  monuments  of  it 
remain — a  temple  and  a  theatre — which  preserve  its 
memory  and  attract  the  curious.  The  temple  is  not, 
perhaps,  the  most  beautiful  of  those  still  possessed  by 
Sicily,  but  there  are  none  which  more  deeply  impress 
travellers.  In  order  to  enjoy  and  appreciate  it  at  its 
full  merits,  it  is  well  to  view  it  from  a  little  distance,  it 
being  a  characteristic  of  Greek  monuments  that  they 
are  made  for  the  place  they  occupy,  and  that  their 
position  is  one  of  the  elements  of  their  beauty.  Here 
the  temple  rises  upon  a  height,  and  the  very  hill  on 
which  it  is  built  serves  it  as  a  pedestal.  It  is  one 
with  it,  it  is  its  crown,  and  to  isolate  were  to  dis- 
member and  mutilate  it.  Its  aspect  changes  entirely 
according  to  the  point  of  view.  Coming  from 
Calatafimi,  it  is  caught  sight  of  suddenly  at  a  turn  of 
the  road,  through  a  break  in  the  rocks,  and  the  view  is 
marvellous.  It  appears  in  profile,  and  its  columns 
stand  out  against  the  sky   with  wonderful  clearness. 


^NEAS   IN    SICILY.  233 

From  the  foot  of  Monte  Barbaro,  we  have  a  front  view. 
Its  pediment  is  outlined  against  a  fine  mountain,  rising 
behind  and  serving  it  as  a  background.  It  thus 
appears  more  substantial,  more  powerful,  more  severe. 
This  is  the  quality  which  prevails  as  one  approaches. 
When  we  are  quite  close,  the  whole  may  even  appear 
heavy  and  ungraceful.  The  columns,  as  in  all  Sicilian 
temples,  are  very  near  each  other,  less  slender  and  more 
massive  than  in  the  buildings  of  Greece  proper.  But 
let  us  reflect  that  here  the  architects  had  a  difficult 
problem  to  solve.  They  built  with  inferior  materials 
upon  an  agitated  and  moving  soil,  and  they  had  to 
sacrifice  lightness  to  solidity.  They  succeeded,  since 
their  monuments  still  exist.  It  is,  moreover,  a  defect 
to  which  one  soon  becomes  accustomed.  The  first 
surprise  over,  we  admire  without  reserve  this  noble 
Doric  architecture — so  sober,  so  vigorous,  so  clear,  so 
rational ;  where  there  is  no  ornament  without  its 
explanation,  not  a  detail  but  conduces  to  the  effect  of 
the  whole,  and  which  is  a  satisfaction  to  the  mind  as 
well  as  a  feast  for  the  eye.^  The  Temple  of  Segesta  was 
not  finished.  The  fluting  of  the  columns  is  scarcely 
begun,  and  the  friezes  were  never  ornamented  with 
sculpture.  Very  likely  the  building  w^as  in  progress 
when  Agathocles  took  Segesta  by  assault.  It  is  known 
that  he  ruthlessly  massacred  ten  thousand  of  its  inhabi- 


^  In  connection  with  these  qualities  of  the  Gothic  order,  the  first 
pages  of  Burckhardt's  Cicerone  may  be  read.  This  excellent  book, 
found  so  useful  to  serious  travellers  desirous  of  forming  a  true  judg- 
ment of  the  masterpieces  of  art,  is  now  entirely  at  our  disposal,  having 
been  translated  into  very  elegant  French  by  SI.  Auguste  Gerard 
(Paris,  Firmin  Didot). 


234  THE   COUJsTRY   OF    HOKACE   AND   YIHGIL. 

tants  and  sold  the  rest.  Since  that  terrible  event, 
the  city  did  nothing  more  than  vegetate,  and  never 
found  resources  to  complete  the  temple  begun  by  her 
on  so  large  a  scale  in  the  time  of  her  prosperity.  It 
had  to  be  adapted  to  worship  as  best  it  might,  and  was 
used  in  this  condition  for  centuries.  This  is  what  has 
since  happened  to  many  Gothic  cathedrals  overtaken  by 
the  Eenaissance  or  the  Eeform  before  their  completion. 
As  for  the  town  itself,  it  was  situated  on  a  neigh- 
bouring hill,  Monte  Barbaro.  We  climb  up  to  it  with 
difficulty,  amid  fallen  rocks;  and  in  the  ascent  we  come 
across  a  few  fragments  of  wall,  a  few  thresholds  of  the 
Eoman  epoch,  and  this  is  all  w^e  have  left  of  Segesta. 
One  of  the  things  that  most  astonish  us,  while  roving 
the  world  in  search  of  relics  of  the  past,  is  to  see 
important  towns,  like  this  which  resisted  Syracuse, 
perish  so  completely  that  scarcely  a  trace  of  them  is 
left.  Only  the  theatre,  cut  into  the  rock,  has  survived 
the  common  ruin.  The  orchestra  and  the  stage  may  be 
distinguished,  while  the  rows  of  benches,  with  the  steps 
by  which  the  spectators  reached  their  places,  are  nearly 
intact.  If  we  except  that  of  Taormina,  which  is  a 
marvel,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  another  in  Sicily 
whence  a  more  extensive  or  more  varied  view  is 
enjoyed.  It  is  bosomed  ^n  the  midst  of  a  circle  of 
picturesque  mountains,  whose  tops  sometimes  form  great 
majestic  lines,  and  at  others  fantastic,  intricate  zigzags. 
Before  it,  the  plain  extends  as  far  as  the  sea,  seen  on  the 
horizon  in  a  frame  of  hills,  with  the  little  town  of 
Castellamare,  which  without  doubt  formerly  served  as 
a  port  to  Segesta.  Looking  down  below  us,  we  are 
struck  by  the  variety  of  different  aspects  the  country 


vENEAS   IN    SICILY.  235 

presents  at  its  various  heights.  At  a  glance  we  may 
pass  in  review  all  the  different  cultivations  forming  its 
wealth.  Below,  near  the  streams,  are  orange  and  lemon 
trees,  whose  yellow  fruit  stands  out  upon  the  dark-green 
leaves.  A  little  higher,  half-way  up,  we  have  corn,  the 
vine,  the  olive — all  those  products  which  made  Sicily, 
as  Cato  said,  the  granary  of  Italy.  Higher  yet,  along 
the  abrupt  slopes,  are  seen  dwarf  palms,  aloes,  a  vigor- 
ous vegetation  reaching  nearly  to  the  top  of  the  hills, 
and  cropped  by  sheep  and  goats.  But  in  spite  of  the 
admiration  this  sight  produces,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
feel  intense  surprise.  As  far  as  sight  can  penetrate, 
neither  village,  farm,  nor  cottage  is  to  be  seen  ;  and  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  wild-looking  herdsmen,  not  a 
human  form.  The  workmen  only  come  here  when  they 
have  to  sow  or  reap.  Their  labour  done,  they  return 
home,  and  this  fertile  country,  for  a  while  so  full  of  life, 
once  more  becomes  a  desert.  The  solitude  is  then  so 
profound,  that  one  finds  it  very  difficult  to  picture  to 
oneself  that  these  spots,  where  no  human  sound  reaches 
the  ear,  were  once  so  well  peopled  and  so  animated ;  and 
did  one  not  see  at  one's  feet  the  seats  of  a  theatre,  and 
on  a  neighbouring  hill  the  temple  with  its  empty  cella 
and  sunken  roof,  one  would  never  imagine  one  was 
standing  on  the  site  of  a  great  town. 

After  ^neas  has  founded  Segesta,  and  settled  the 
Trojans  there  whom  he  is  not  to  take  with  him,  nothing 
more  remains  for  him  to  do  in  Sicily.  So  he  takes  leave 
of  Acestus,  sacrifices  sheep  and  bulls  to  the  gods,  and 
orders  the  cables  which  hold  the  ships  to  the  shore  to  be 
cut.  "  Himself  erect  upon  the  prow,  his  head  encircled 
with  an  olive  wreatli,  and  raising  the   cup  he  holds  in 


236  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AXD   VIRGIL. 

his  hand,  he  flings  into  the  salt  sea  the  entrails  of  the 
victims,  and  pours  libations  of  wine  upon  the  waves."  i 
The  wind  blows  from  the  poop,  and  bears  him  to  Italy, 
where  he  must  fulfil  his  destiny. 


III. 
OSTIA  AND  LAVINIUM. 


THE  TWO  PARTS  OF  THE  ^xV^/Z»— CHARACTER  OF  THE  LAST 
SIX  BOOKS — VIRGIL  IS  HERE  IN  THE  HEART  OE  HIS 
SUBJECT — PERFECTION  OF  THE  STYLE — THE  POET'S 
AIM  COMES  OUT  BETTER — VIRGIL'S  PATRIOTISM— HOW 
HE  HAS  GROUPED  ALL  ITALY  AROUND  HIS  WORK. 

The  j^neid,  as  we  know,  is  very  exactly  divided  into 
two  equal  parts,  of  six  Books  each.  The  first  portion 
contains  the  adventures  of  ^neas  up  to  the  moment 
when  he  disembarks  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  The 
other  relates  how  he  manages  to  establish  himself  in  the 
country  assigned  him  by  the  Fates.  These  two  parts 
have  not  quite  the  same  character.  It  was  long  since 
remarked  that  the  one  more  resembles  the  Odyssey,  the 
other  the  Ftiad.  The  first  is  most  generally  preferred 
by  amateurs  and  critics,  who  find  it  more  interesting, 
more  agreeable,  and  more  varied.     They  find  the  second 

uEn.,  V.  774. 


OSTIA   AND    LAYINIUM.  237 

greatly  inferior,  some  even  suspecting  that  Virgil  felt 
this  inferiority,  and  that  this  is  why,  when  dying,  he 
wished  to  destroy  his  work.  "  It  is  not  vouchsafed  to 
men  to  be  perfect,"  says  Voltaire,  alluding  to  this. 
"  Virgil  exhausts  all  that  the  imagination  has  of  greatest 
in  the  descent  of  ^Eneas  to  hell ;  in  the  loves  of  Dido 
he  has  said  all  that  can  be  said  to  the  heart ;  terror  and 
compassion  cannot  go  further  than  in  the  description  of 
the  ruin  of  Troy.  From  this  high  elevation  which  he 
had  reached  in  the  midst  of  his  flight,  he  could  only 
descend."  Chateaubriand  was,  I  think,  the  first  among 
us  to  protest  against  the  opinion  of  Voltaire.  In  that 
part  of  the  Genius  of  Christianity,  where  he  treats  of 
literary  criticism,  and  where,  in  spite  of  his  defective 
knowledge,  he  has  cast  so  many  new  ideas,  he  makes  the 
curious  remark  that  the  most  touching  lines  of  Virgil, 
those  whose  memory  has  lingered  in  all  hearts,  are  found 
in  just  the  last  six  Books  of  the  ^neid.  He  infers  from 
this  that  in  drawing  near  to  the  tomb  the  poet  put 
something  more  celestial  into  his  accents,  "like  the 
swans  of  Eurotas,  consecrated  to  the  Muses,  who,  accord- 
ing to  Pythagoras,  before  expiring  had  a  vision  of 
Olympus,  and  expressed  their  ravishment  by  harmonious 
songs." 

What  is  true  above  all,  and  impossible  to  contest,  is 
that  in  these  six  Books  we  are  really  in  the  heart  of  the 
subject.  Virgil  has  taken  care  to  tell  us  this  himself. 
At  the  moment  when  his  hero  disembarks  upon  the 
coast  of  Italy,  he  interrupts  himself,  in  order  to  invoke 
the  Muse,  and  ask  her  aid,  for  he  needs  it  more  than 
ever  on  account  of  the  importance  of  the  events  he  is 
about  to  sin.G; : 


238     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

"  Major  rerem  mill  nascitur  ordo, 
Majus  opus  moveo  "  ' 

We  see  that,  far  from  believing,  as  Voltaire  would 
have  it,  that  at  this  moment  "  his  subject  declines," 
he  proclaims  that  he  has  reached  the  culminating  point 
of  his  work.  There  are  even  some  critics  who,  taking 
advantage  of  his  avowal,  reproach  him  with  having 
got  there  too  late.  They  find  that  it  is  much  to  spend 
six  Books  out  of  twelve  in  the  narration  of  preliminary 
adventures,  and  that  it  is  surprising  that  in  a  poem 
whose  fine  ordering  everybody  extols,  half  of  the 
work  should  be  beside  the  real  action.  But  it 
seems  to  me  that  people  who  so  reason  do  not 
take  Yiroil's  aim  into  account.  He  wants  to  relate 
how  MnesiS  brought  his  >gods  into  Latium  and  built 
them  an  asylum  there,  so  that  the  action  begins  at 
the  moment  when  Hector  confides  them  to  him. 
All  the  dangers  he  dares  by  land  or  sea  are  equally 
part  of  the  subject ;  and  if  Virgil  seems  to  have  chosen 
to  multiply  them  at  pleasure,'^  it  is  because  they  fore- 
shadow the  great  destinies  of  the  city  that  is  about  to 
come  into  being.  The  hostile  gods  would  not  rage 
against  her  with  such  cruel  obstinacy  did  they  not 
know  that  she  is  to  be  queen  of  the  world.  This  is 
why,  after  having  recalled  all  the  obstacles  that  oppose 
its  birth,  and  which  appear  to  him  the  gauge  of  its 
glorious  future,  the  poet  concludes  his  enumeration 
with  this  triumphant  line  : 

1  ^n.,  VII.  44. 

2  Heyne  (^5'?i.  III.,  excursus  II.)  has  shown  that  while  the  ordiuary 
traditions  suppose  the  voyage  to  have  lasted  three  years,  Virgil  makes 
it  last  seven. 


OSTIA   AND    LAVINIUM.  239 

"  Tantce  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  gentem.^'  i 

Thus  the  trials  of  all  kinds  inliicted  by  the  anger 
of  Juno  on  pious  ^neas  are  included  in  the  subject  of 
the  ^neid,  and  Virgil  was  within  his  ric^ht  in  relatino" 
them  to  us;  but  as  the  adverse  duties  must  redouble 
their  efibrts  in  proportion  as  the  hero  nears  the  goal, 
it  is  natural  that  his  last  struggle  should  also  be  the 
most  perilous.  Before  gaining  a  decisive  victory,  he 
must  brave  his  most  inveterate  enemies  and  fight  the 
most  hazardous  battles.  Viroil  was  therefore  ri^dit  in 
saying,  at  the  moment  when  he  was  about  to  begin  the 
narration  of  these  last  combats,  "  that  a  vaster  career 
was  opening  before  him,  and  that  he  had  arrived  at 
the  most  important  part  of  his  work." 

It  was  also  the  most  difficult  part.  In  the  remainder 
he  is  supported  and  sustained  by  Homer  and  the  other 
poets,  epic  or  lyric,  who  sang  the  adventures  of  the 
Greek  heroes  returning  home  after  the  fall  of  Troy. 
Thanks  to  these  poets,  all  the  isles  of  the  Archipelago, 
all  the  shores  of  the  Ionian  Sea,  were  peopled  with 
charming  fancies  which  they  had  sown  in  the  path 
of  their  heroes.  Virgil  had  only  to  choose ;  to  what- 
ever spot  he  led  JEnesiS,  he  was  sure  to  awaken  poetic 
memories  in  every  mind.  Homer,  Sophocles,  Pindarus, 
and  the  others  thus  became  his  fellow- workers,  and  he 
gave  his  poem  the  advantage  of  the  admiration  inspired 
by  their  works.  But  once  alighted  in  Italy,  all  these 
resources  fail  him.  On  this  ungrateful  soil,  which 
Poesy  has  not  touched  with  her  wing ;  which,  instead 
of  the  treasure  of  Greek  fables,  only  offers  him  a  few 

1  ^n.,  T.  33. 


240  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

meagre  and  prosaic  legends,  he  must  draw  upon  him- 
self for  almost  everything.  I  will  not  pity  him  too 
much  on  this  account ;  since  if  from  this  moment  his 
work  becomes  less  easy  and  pleasant,  it  gains  in 
originality,  and  belongs  to  him  more.  It  is  this  indeed 
which  gives  us  his  true  measure.  Whatever  admiration 
one  feels  for  the  marvels  he  has  crowded  into  his 
first  six  Books,  there  is  in  the  others  more  invention 
and  veritable  genius,  and  it  is  by  them  he  should  be 
judged. 

In  the  first  place,  their  style  is  perfect.  The  efforts 
the  poet  must  have  made  to  impart  beauty  to  matter  in 
itself  sufficiently  arid,  and  to  put  something  of  variety 
into  a  rather  monotonous  theme,  are  not  perceived. 
The  incidents  are  so  skilfully  introduced,  and  seem  to 
arise  so  naturally  from  the  subject,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  realise  how  much  imagination  and  artifice  were 
needed  to  weld  them  together.  This  merit  does 
not  strike  one  in  reading  a  good  poem.  Order  and 
connection  are  such  natural  qualities  that  one  does 
not  think  of  remarking  them.  In  order  to  appreciate 
their  value,  we  must  read  those  devoid  of  them. 
From  this  point  of  view,  it  may  be  said  that  the 
perusal  of  the  epic  poets  of  the  decadence,  who 
took  so  much  trouble  to  be  interesting,  and 
succeeded  so  poorly,  redounds  much  to  Virgil's 
credit.  Valerius  Flaccus,  Silius  Italicus,  and,  above 
all,  Statins,  that  man  of  so  much  refinement 
and  talent,  whose  poem  is  only  a  mass  of  brilliant 
episodes,  laboriously  brought  together  without  being 
united,  makes  us  duly  appreciate  in  the  JEneid  the 
simplicity  of  the  action,  the  dexterous  joining  of  the 


OSTIA   AND   LAYINIUM.  241 

parts,  and  the  harmony  of  the  whole.  But  we  shall  be 
more  sensible  of  these  merits  if  we  compare  different 
parts  of  Virgil's  work.  In  the  first  Books  of  his  poem, 
the  narrative  sometimes  wanders ;  and  there  is  even 
one,  the  Fifth,  which,  strictly  speaking,  might  be 
omitted.  Nothing  of  the  kind  is  found  in  the  second 
part  of  the  work.  There  everything  is  connected  and 
linked,  and  the  author  walks  straight  on  without  ever 
straying  from  his  road.  The  action,  urgent  and  swift, 
lingers  not  for  a  moment.  It  is  so  simple  that  it 
may  be  taken  in  at  a  glance,  and  nothing  is  easier  than 
to  sum  it  up  in  a  few  words.  Throughout  three  Books 
Fate  is  adverse  to  the  Trojans.  Juno  succeeds  in 
frustrating  the  alliance  they  were  about  to  make  with 
Latinus ;  all  the  Italian  peoples  take  arms  against 
them ;  and  while  ^neas  is  gone  to  obtain  the  support 
of  Evander  and  the  Etruscans,  Turnus  besieges  his 
camp  and  almost  succeeds  in  taking  it.  In  the  Tenth 
Book  ^neas  returns  with  fresh  troops,  and  on  his 
arrival  fortune  changes.  He  begins  by  beating  back 
the  Latins,  who  attack  his  soldiers;  then  he  in  his 
turn  pursues  them  as  far  as  Lauren  turn,  and  ends  the 
war  with  the  death  of  Turnus.  This  arrangement 
is  nearly  the  same  as  that  of  the  Iliad,  where 
we  see  Hector  advance  nearer  and  nearer  towards 
the  vessels  of  the  Greeks,  and  then  retire  before 
Achilles  as  far  as  the  walls  of  Troy,  where  he  is 
slain.  But  in  Homer  events  are  so  crowded  that 
the  wealth  of  detail  does  not  always  allow  of  a  just 
conception  of  the  whole.  In  Virgil,  who  is  more 
sober  and  terse,  the  general  plan  is  better  seen,  the 
double    movement    constituting   the   progress   of    the 

Q 


242  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

action  is  better  understood,  and  the  unity  of  the 
work  being  more  apparent,  the  interest  seems  to  be 
more  lively. 

I  also  find  that  in  these  last  Books  one  is  more 
struck  by  the  poet's  aim,  and  that  the  idea  which 
animates  the  work  is  more  visible  here  than  elsewhere. 
This  thought,  it  may  be  said,  is  found  everywhere ;  for 
there  is  not  a  verse  of  the  JEneid  in  which  Eome  is 
not  glorified,  and  just  at  the  end  of  the  Sixth  Book 
there  is  an  admirable  summary  of  its  history.  Virgil's 
patriotism  is  so  ardent  that  he  everywhere  seeks  and 
finds  occasion  to  display  it.  One  feels  some  surprise 
at  this,  when  one  reflects  that  this  poet  who  sings  of 
Eome  with  such  passion  was  not  quite  Eoman  by  birth. 
Tor  a  long  time  the  aristocratic  party  had  obstinately 
refused  to  grant  the  right  of  complete  citizenship  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Cisalpina.  These  vain  great  lords  took 
pleasure  in  making  them  feel,  by  every  kind  of  outrage,, 
that  they  were  still  subjects  and  a  conquered  people. 
Virgil,  in  his  youth,  must  have  heard  the  story  of  the 
decurion  of  Como,  whom  Marcellus  one  day  caused  to 
be  beaten  with  rods,  in  order  to  prove  to  him  that  he 
was  not  a  citizen.  It  was  not  until  712,  after  the  battle 
of  Philippi,  that  the  inhabitants  of  Cisalpina,  who  had 
received  from  Ci^sar  the  right  of  citizenship,  were  placed 
upon  quite  the  same  rank  as  other  Italians.  Virgil 
was  then  twenty-eight  years  old,  and  a  Eoman  at  heart. 
Eome  must  truly  have  exerted  an  extraordinary  attrac- 
tion over  people,  for  her  former  enemies  so  soon  to 
have  become  her  faithful  allies  and  devoted  citizens. 
She  is  usually  represented  as  an  object  of  execration 
to  the  vanquished ;   this   is  a  great  mistake,  at  least 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  243 

SO  far  as  the  West  is  concerned.  She  knew  how,  in 
a  few  years,  to  make  her  conquest  forgotten.  It  is 
remarkable  that  those  who  loved  her  most,  who 
served  her  with  the  greatest  zeal,  and  celebrated  her 
with  most  affection,  did  not  belong  to  her  by  birth,  and 
were  descended  from  peoples  she  had  roughly  subdued. 
Virgil,  then,  was  a  patriot,  almost  before  he  was  a 
citizen,  only  his  patriotism  is  not  quite  like  that  of 
the  old  Eomans  of  the  Republic.  The  latter  only  saw 
Eome,  and  the  great  town  was  all  in  all  to  them. 
Virgil  also  admires  it  much ;  but  he  does  not  separate 
it  from  Italy.  The  country,  for  him,  is  not  entirely 
included  within  the  wall  of  Servius ;  it  includes  the 
lands  contained  by  the  Alps  and  the  sea.  And  he 
is  tenderly  attached  to  this  great  country,  which  had 
been  so  unhappy  during  the  civil  wars,  and  which 
he  saw  so  rich  and  flourishing  under  Augustus.^ 
He  had  already  sung  it  in  admirable  lines  in  his 
Georgics : — 

''^  Salve,  mar/na  parens  f rug  urn,  Satiirnia  telluSj 
Magna  zirum  ! "  - 

When,  later  on,  in  response  to  the  wish  of  the 
Emperor  and  the  desire  of  all  the  Romans,  he  resolved 
to  write  his   epic,  he  quite  intended   to    associate  all 


^  The  scholiast  Servius  tells  us:  "It  is  well  seen  that  Virgil  was 
very  much  interested  in  all  that  concerned  Italy"  {jEn.,  I.  44). 
Although  his  history  is  not  well  known,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  he 
had  often  visited  it,  admiring  its  beautiful  spots  and  its  fine  views, 
and  inquiring  into  the  ancient  history  of  all  the  towns  he  passed 
through. 

-  Georg.,  II.  173. 


244  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

Italy  in  the  glory  with  which  he  meant  to  crown  Rome. 
He  started  with  this  thought,  but  could  only  quite 
realise  it  in  his  last  six  Books.  The  action,  which 
hitherto  had  travelled  all  over  the  world,  then  centres 
in  the  plains  of  Latium.  The  theatre  in  which  this 
great  drama  is  played  is  really  very  limited,  and  does  not 
extend  beyond  four  or  five  square  leagues ;  but  in  this 
little  plain  reaching  from  Ostia  to  Laurentum,  and 
from  the  hills  to  the  sea,  Virgil  has  had  the  skill  to 
group  all  Italy.  There  are  in  the  army  of  Turnus, 
Latins,  Sabines,  Volsci,  Marsci,  Umbrians,  and  even 
Campanians — that  is  to  say,  representatives  of  all  those 
noble  races  of  Central  Italy  that  furnished  so  many 
soldiers  to  the  Eoman  armies,  ^neas  joins  to  his 
Trojans  the  Greeks  of  Evander,  and  the  Etruscans  of 
Tarchon ;  and  as  at  this  time  Etruria  extended  her 
dominion  as  far  as  the  Alps,  the  poet  takes  occasion  to 
put  Ligurians  and  Cisalpians  among  the  troops  of 
^neas,  and  to  say  something  by  the  way  of  his  be- 
loved Mantua.  Only  the  point  of  Southern  Italy,  then 
in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks,  remained  outside  his 
subject ;  but  he  finds  means  of  some  sort  to  connect  it. 
He  imagines  that  Turnus  sends  an  embassy  to  Diomedes, 
who  reigns  over  those  parts,  in  order  to  ask  his  alliance. 
Thus,  although  Diomedes  refuses  to  take  up  arms,  his 
name  and  those  of  the  towns  he  governs  are  not  quite 
absent  from  the  ^neid.  And  so  the  poet  caused  all 
the  races  of  Italy  to  figure  in  it,  creating  for  them 
common  memories  in  the  past,  at  the  moment  when 
they  had  just  been  united  under  the  hegemony  of 
Rome,  and  interesting  them  all  in  the  success  of  his 
work. 


^'•'  or   THB        ""^'J.^^ 

TJIMIVEBSITY 


MAI\IT1ME  LAT1UA\ 

ENVIRONS  OF  OSTIA 


LA\TNiVM.Js 


T    Fisher  Unwin.  Paternoster  Square.  E.G. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  245 

These  general  reflections  ended,  let  us  enter  at  length 
upon  the  study  of  the  chief  events  narrated  in  Virgil's 
last  six  Books,  and  follow  them,  as  far  as  possible,  over 
the  country  which  was  their  theatre. 


11. 

iENEAS  LANDS  ON  THE  COAST  OF  OSTIA  —  VIEGIL'S 
DESCEIPTION  OF  IT — ITS  ASPECT  IN  OUR  DAYS — HOW 
^.NEAS  KNOWS  THAT  HE  HAS  EEACHED  THE  END  OF 
HIS  VOYAGE — MIRACLE  OF  THE  EATEN  TABLES — THE 
WHITE  SOW  AND  HER  THIRTY  LITTLE  ONES — ORIGINAL 
MEANING  OF  THIS  LEGEND,  AND  THE  CHANGES  IT 
UNDERWENT. 

In  the  course  of  his  long  voyage  ^neas  has  more 
than  once  approached  Italy.  On  quitting  Epirus, 
where  Helenus  and  Andromache  had  just  given  him 
such  a  good  reception,  he  perceived  in  the  distance 
before  him  low  lands  and  misty  hills.  It  is  Italy. 
"  Italy  ! "  exclaims  first  Achates.  "  Italy  I "  join  in  all 
his  companions,  saluting  it  with  a  joyous  cry.  The 
heart  of  ^neas  beats  with  pleasure  on  first  nearing  the 
country  promised  him  by  the  Fates,  and  which  his 
race  is  to  make  so  glorious.  But  he  is  not  to  enter  on 
this  side.  The  soil  before  his  eyes  is  all  Greek,  and 
peopled  with  enemies.  He  contents  himself  with 
secretly  passing  a  night  there,  and  continues  his  way 
along  the  Gulf  of  Tarentum.  Later  on,  after  his  sojourn 
in  Carthage  and  in  Sicily,  where  Acestus,  anotlier 
fugitive  from  Troy,  affords  him  hospitality,  he  stops  at 
Cumte  to  consult  the  sibyl  and  descend  into  Hell.     But 


ENVIRONS  OF  OSl 


Paternoster  Square,  E.G. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  245 

These  general  reflections  ended,  let  us  enter  at  length 
upon  the  study  of  the  chief  events  narrated  in  Virgil's 
last  six  Books,  and  follow  them,  as  far  as  possible,  over 
the  country  which  was  their  theatre. 


II. 

iENEAS  LANDS  ON  THE  COAST  OF  OSTIA  —  VIRGIL'S 
DESCEIPTION  OF  IT — ITS  ASPECT  IN  OUR  DAYS — HOW 
^.NEAS  KNOWS  THAT  HE  HAS  REACHED  THE  END  OF 
HIS  VOYAGE — MIRACLE  OF  THE  EATEN  TABLES — THE 
WHITE  SOW  AND  HER  THIRTY  LITTLE  ONES — ORIGINAL 
MEANING  OF  THIS  LEGEND,  AND  THE  CHANGES  IT 
UNDERWENT. 

In  the  course  of  his  long  voyage  ^neas  has  more 
than  once  approached  Italy.  On  quitting  Epirus, 
where  Helenus  and  Andromache  had  just  given  him 
such  a  good  reception,  he  perceived  in  the  distance 
before  him  low  lands  and  misty  hills.  It  is  Italy. 
"  Italy  ! "  exclaims  first  Achates.  "  Italy  ! "  join  in  all 
his  companions,  saluting  it  with  a  joyous  cry.  The 
heart  of  ^neas  beats  with  pleasure  on  first  nearing  the 
country  promised  him  by  the  Fates,  and  which  his 
race  is  to  make  so  glorious.  But  he  is  not  to  enter  on 
this  side.  The  soil  before  his  eyes  is  all  Greek,  and 
peopled  with  enemies.  He  contents  liimself  with 
secretly  passing  a  night  there,  and  continues  his  way 
along  the  Gulf  of  Tarentum.  Later  on,  after  liis  sojourn 
in  Carthage  and  in  Sicily,  where  Acestus,  anotlier 
fugitive  from  Troy,  affords  him  hospitality,  he  stops  at 
Cumee  to  consult  the  sibyl  and  descend  into  Hell.     But 


246     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

this  is  not  yet  the  spot  where  he  is  to  settle  ;  he  must 
re-embark  and  turn  towards  those  Latian  lands  "  which 
seem  ever  to  flee  before  him."  Finally,  after  touching 
at  Misenum,  at  Palinurus,  and  at  Caieta,  to  bury  there 
the  companions  he  has  lost,  he  doubles  the  promontory 
where  the  enchantress  Circe  holds  her  court,  and 
arrives  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber. 

"  The  sea  was  already  becoming  tinged  with  the  rays 
of  dawn,  and  Aurora  clomb  to  the  horizon  on  her  rosy 
car.  Suddenly  the  winds  fall,  the  breeze  ceases  to 
blow,  and  we  must  wrestle  with  the  oar  against  the 
passive  wave.  Then  ^neas  sees  upon  the  shore  a 
tufted  wood,  and  in  the  midst  the  Tiber  winds  his 
smiling  course,  bearing  his  yellow  sands,  and  flinging 
himself  with  rapid  whirlings  into  the  sea.  Along  and 
above  his  waters  birds  of  varied  hues,  the  wonted 
dwellers  of  the  wood  and  stream,  enchant  the  air  with 
their  accents,  and  flutter  amid  the  trees.  ^Eneas  orders 
his  sailors  to  direct  their  course  on  that  side,  and  turn  the 
prows  towards  the  shore,  and  then  he  enters  joyously 
the  shady  bed  of  Tiber."  i 

I  have  more  than  once  gone  over  this  coast  where, 
one  spring  morning,  the  pious  ^neas  landed;  and  I 
own  that  the  spectacle  I  had  before  my  eyes  is  not 
quite  what  Virgil  drew.  The  Tiber  continues  to  flow 
noiselessly,  fretting  its  banks,  and  rolling  its  yellow 
waters  towards  the  sea;  but  trees  are  rare  on  this 
desolate  shore,  and  I  never  heard  birds  sing  there.  In 
lieu  of  this  idyllic  picture,  one  has  before  one  a 
monotonous  and  silent  landscape  that  awakens  in  the 

1  ^11.,  Vil.  24. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  247 

soul  an  impression  of  sadness  and  of  grandeur.  It  was 
otherwise  in  Virgil's  time ;  and  if  he  adorned  his  picture 
with  such  cheerful  colours,  it  is  because  he  drew  these 
spots  as  he  saw  them.  Near  the  Tiber's  mouth  rose  Ostia, 
the  old  port  of  Eome,  growing  each  day  in  importance, 
as  the  relations  of  Italy  with  foreign  countries  became 
more  frequent.  The  moment  was  approaching  when 
the  great  city,  unable  any  longer  to  feed  herself,  would 
be  forced  to  ask  neighbouring  lands  for  her  food — oil 
from  Spain,  corn  from  Africa  and  Egypt.  All  the 
merchandise  of  the  world  was  beginning  to  pass 
through  Ostia,  which  grew  more  and  more  populous 
every  day.  It  is  at  this  time  that  Virgil  visited  it, 
and  he  saw  the  Tiber  as  those  enriched  merchants,  who 
came  thither  to  enjoy  a  little  freshness  and  repose  upon 
its  banks  after  the  fatigues  of  the  day,  had  made  it. 
All  this  part  of  the  country  had  then  a  very  different 
aspect  from  that  which  ten  centuries  of  desertion  and 
solitude  have  given  it.  The  sacred  isle  between  Porto 
and  Ostia  has  become  a  desert  where  a  few  wild  oxen 
graze,  and  which  the  traveller  hardly  dares  to  cross. 
was  then  a  much-frequented  place,  whither  the  Proefect 
of  Eome  came  with  a  part  of  the  Eoman  people  to  cele- 
brate brilliant  festivals.  We  are  told  that  throughout  the 
year  the  ground  formed  a  veritable  carpet  of  verdure, 
and  that  in  spring  so  many  roses  and  flowers  of  all 
kinds  grew  there  that  the  air  was  perfumed,  and  it  was 
called  "  the  abode  of  Venus."  ^     The  banks  of  the  Tiber, 


^  See  what  Wernsdorff  says  in  the  Preface  of  Pervigilium  Veneris 
about  these  festivals  which  used  to  be  celebrated  at  Ostia  {Poetce  Lat. 
minores,  Lemaire's  edition,  II.  p.  485). 


248  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

as  far  as  Rome,  were  covered  uninterruptedly  with  fine 
villas.  "He  alone,"  says  Pliny,  "has  more  than  all 
other  rivers  together."  ^  Near  the  immense  city  it  was 
bordered  by  delicious  gardens,  where  the  great  lords 
loved  to  assemble  their  friends  of  both  sexes  for  joyous 
feasts,  during  which  they  amused  themselves  by 
watching  the  boats  pass  up  and  down  the  stream.^ 
One  cannot  doubt  but  that  Virgil  assisted  more  than 
once  at  these  amusements  of  the  Roman  aristocracy, 
and  he  must  have  had  them  in  mind  when  describing 
in  the  Eighth  Book  the  journey  undertaken  by  ^neas 
to  the  town  of  Evander.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
imagine  a  more  pleasant  voyage :  "  The  vessels  glide 
upon  the  waters,  the  river  is  astonished,  the  forest  looks 
with  surprise  at  this  new  spectacle  of  gleaming  bucklers 
and  brightly- coloured  ships  that  swim  upon  the  waves. 
The  rowers  work  without  ceasim?,  and  advance  through 
the  long  windings  of  the  Tiber ;  they  pass  beneath  a 
thick  vault  of  trees ;  and  their  prow  seems  to  cleave 
the  forest  whose  image  is  reflected  on  the  placid 
water."  ^  Except  the  sinuosities  of  the  sluggish  river, 
nothing  is  now  left  us  resembling  this  seductive 
picture.  An  old  writer,  a  century  earlier  than  Virgil, 
and  who  doubtless  lived  at  a  time  when  the  work  of 
man  had  not  yet  transformed  this  thankless  nature, 
speaks  very  differently  from  him.  He  describes  ^neas 
as  seized  with  sadness  at  the  sight  of  this  country 
which  Latinus  makes  over  to  him,  and  where  he  must 
henceforth  live.  "  He  was  very  ill  pleased,"  he  tells  us, 
*'  to  have  fallen  upon  so  arid  and  sandy  a  soil :  wgre 

1  Hist.  Kat.,  III.  5  (9).  2  Propertius,  I.  14.         3  ^^,j,^  yjn^  91^ 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  249 

patiebatuT  in  eum  devenisse  agrum  inacerrimitiii  litorosis- 
simumque."  ^^  This  energetic  sentence  represents 
admirably  the  aspect  of  the  country  as  we  see  it  to-day. 
When  from  the  height  of  one  of  these  mounds,  formed 
by  the  accumulation  of  ruins,  we  cast  our  eyes  around 
us,  it  is  impossible  not  to  pity  the  poor  Trojan  chief 
who  has  just  left  the  rich  fields  of  Asia,  and  whom  the 
gods  have  made  pay  with  so  many  toils  and  perils  for 
the  possession  of  a  few  leagues  of  sand. 

Virgil  attributes  other  feelings  to  him.  He  re- 
presents him  as  enchanted  at  the  spectacle  before 
him,  and  overjoyed  at  touching  this  unknown  shore. 
For  he  hopes  that  he  has  at  last  reached  the  end  of  his 
journey,  and  that  the  soil  he  is  about  to  tread  is  the 
land  whither  the  Fates  have  led  him.  But  when  we 
know  pious  ^neas,  we  shall  be  certain  that  he  will  not 
lightly  trust  to  his  hopes.  Before  beginning  to  found 
a  stable  settlement,  he  will  wait  until  the  gods  have 
shown  him  by  manifest  signs  that  he  is  not  mistaken ; 
and  in  order  that  he  may  have  full  confidence,  they 
must  prove  to  him  twice,  by  successive  prodigies,  that 
he  is  in  the  land  where  he  is  to  remain.  These 
wonders,  related  by  Virgil  circumstantially,  have  in  his 
work  a  particular  character.  They  already  astonished 
the  critics  of  antiquity ;  they  still  more  surprise 
modern   readers,^   and   have   given   rise   to  great   dis- 

1  Servius,  in  JEJn.,  I.  7.  These  are  the  words  of  the  historian 
Fabius  Maximus. 

^  Voltaire  is  so  afraid  they  may  be  found  ridiculous  that  he  finds 
it  necessary  to  excuse  Virgil  for  having  related  them.  "Is  it  not 
true,"  he  says,  "that  we  should  allow  a  French  author  who  took 
Clovis  for  his  hero  to  talk  about  the  holy  ampulla  brought  by  a  dove 
from  heaven  into  the  city  of  Rheims  to  anoint  the  king,  and  which 


250     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

cussions.  Since  we  are  just  upon  the  spot  where  they 
took  place,  let  us  occupy  ourselves  with  them  for  a 
moment. 

We  know  what  a  great  part  religion  plays  in  the 
u^neid,  and  that  this  religion  in  its  essence  is  the 
religion  of  Homer.  I  cannot  here  relate  how  it  happens 
that  the  gods  of  Greece  and  Eome,  which  originally  did 
not  resemble  each  other,  finished  by  being  confounded. 
The  friends  of  Greek  literature  doubtless  helped  much 
in  this  confusion  ;  in  any  case,  it  was  very  advantageous 
to  them.  When  they  composed  some  poetical  work,  they 
allowed  themselves  to  make  Jupiter  and  Minerva  talk 
like  Zeus  or  Athene,  and  to  freely  imitate  those  master- 
pieces with  which  their  imaginations  were  charmed. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  Virgil  also  accepted  it 
very  willingly.  He  loved  Homer  too  much  not  to  seize 
with  alacrity  all  opportunities  of  drawing  near  to  him. 
It  is,  however,  clear  that  he  endeavoured  somehow  to 
preserve  for  his  mythology  a  national  character,  and 
this  stamps  his  originality  among  his  country's  poets. 
In  the  first  place,  we  see  that  when  he  borrows  a  fable 
from  the  Greeks,  he  takes  care  to  place  the  scene  of  it 
in  some  corner  of  Italian  ground.  Instead  of  calling 
up  the  dead  on  a  field  of  asphodels,  on  some  unknown 
isle  of  the  ocean,  like  Ulysses,  ^neas  descends  into 
Hell  near  Lake  Avernus,  at  the  spot  where  the  people 

is  still  preserved  with  faith  in  that  town  ?  It  is  the  fate  of  all  those 
ancient  fables  to  which  the  origin  of  every  nation  goes  back,  that  their 
antiquity  is  respected  while  their  absurdity  is  laughed  at.  After  all, 
however  excusable  it  may  be  to  use  such  tales,  I  think  it  would  be 
better  to  reject  them  entirely.  One  sensible  reader  whom  these  things 
offend  deserves  more  to  be  considered  than  the  ignorant  vulgar  who 
believe  in  them." 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  251 

of  the  country  place  an  entrance  to  Tartarus.  The 
abode  where  Vulcan  forges  the  arms  of  the  gods  is  no 
longer  at  Lemnos,  but  near  Sicily,  in  one  of  those 
volcanic  isles  "  whence  fires  are  seen  to  gush  like  those 
of  ^tna."  1  When  Tisiphone  has  finished  her  work  of 
discord  and  wishes  to  leave  the  earth,  she  plunges  into 
the  Lake  of  Amsactus,  which  exhales  pestiferous 
vapours.2  Finally,  Juno,  desiring  closely  to  watch 
the  last  combats  of  Turnus  and  ^neas,  quits  Olympus 
and  stations  herself  on  the  heights  of  Mount  Albanus, 
where,  later  on,  the  famous  and  national  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Latialis  rose.^  It  was  a  way  of  connecting 
this  foreign  mythology  with  Italy,  and  of  interesting 
all  Eomans  in  attaching  it  more  closely  to  them.  But 
he  had  still  more  in  view.  The  introduction  of  the 
Hellenic  religion  had  not  suppressed  all  the  ancient 
fables  of  the  Italian  races.  Some  survived  in  con- 
nection with  towns  or  temples,  whose  birth  they  ex- 
plained. They  were  rude,  like  the  people  who  had 
created  them ;  and  men  of  the  world,  who  found  that 
they  recalled  the  rusticity  of  their  forefathers,  took 
pleasure  in  laughing  at  them.  Virgil  treated  them 
with  more  respect.  Their  antiquity  endeared  them  to 
him,  and  he  thought  that,  having  cradled  the  infancy 


i  JSn.,  VIII.  416.  2  jiid,^  VII.  563. 

^  Ibid.,  XII.  134.  It  is  curious,  in  this  connection,  to  note  in  what 
degree  Horace  and  Virgil  have  contrary  tendencies.  While  the  patriot 
Virgil,  who  would  fain  impart  a  Latin  colouring  to  the  Greek  fables, 
seems  to  wish  to  confound  Olympus  with  Mount  Albanus,  Horace,  very 
indifferent  to  such  a  care,  laughs  at  those  who  would  identify  Mount 
Albanus  with  Parnassus,  and  who  pretend  to  make  it  the  abode  of  the 
Muses  :  Dictitet  Alhano  Musas  in  monte  locutas  {Epist.,  II.  1.  27). 


252  THE   COUNTRY   OF  IIOKACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

of  the  Eoaian  people,  they  had  a  right  to  figure  in  a 
poem  telling  of  its  foundation.  It  was  doubtless  not 
an  easy  task  to  place  them  beside  the  Homeric  fables, 
usually  so  elegant  and  so  graceful,  and  they  ran  a  great 
risk  of  making  but  a  sorry  figure  there  ;  but  this  danger 
did  not  stay  the  poet,  whose  aim  it  was  that  ^neas,  on 
setting  foot  in  Latium,  should  be  welcomed  and  greeted, 
as  it  were,  by  an  old  Latin  legend. 

The  Trojans,  he  tells  us,  had  just  fastened  their 
ships  to  the  green  banks  of  the  Tiber,  ^neas,  with 
the  principal  chiefs  and  handsome  lulus,  are  resting 
beneath  the  branches  of  a  high  tree.  They  prepare 
their  repast.  First,  among  the  food  they  are  to  eat 
they  place  cakes  of  pure  wheat  (it  was  Jupiter  himself 
who  suggested  this  idea  to  them),  and  then  they  load 
this  table,  formed  of  the  products  of  Ceres,  with  wild 
fruits.  It  happened  that  when  all  their  food  was 
exhausted,  their  hunger,  still  unsated,  obliged  them 
to  attack  those  light  cakes.  "  Ah  I "  exclaimed  lulus, 
jesting,  "  here  we  are  eating  our  tables  as  well."  He 
said  no  more  ;  but  this  saying  was  enough  to  announce 
to  the  Trojans  the  end  of  their  ills,  ^neas  at  once 
receives  it  from  the  mouth  of  his  son,  and  struck  by  the 
accomplishment  of  the  oracle,  he  meditates  upon  it  in 
silence.  Then,  suddenly,  "  Hail !  "  he  cried,  "  land  which 
the  Fates  did  promise  me  !  And  you  also  hail,  faithful 
Penates  of  Troy.  Here  is  your  dwelling,  here  is  your 
country.  My  father  Anchises  (I  remember  him  to-day) 
revealed  to  me  in  times  gone  by  the  secrets  of  the 
future.  '  My  son,'  he  said, '  when  arrived  on  unknown 
shores  hunger  shall  force  thee,  after  eating  all,  to 
devour  also  thy  tables,  hope   then  for  a  fixed  abode. 


OSTIA   AND    LAVINIUM.  253 

and  remember  to  trace  on  that  spot  the  boundary  of  a 
new  town.'  Here,  then,  is  that  terrible  hunger  that  was 
foretold  to  us.  Yes,  we  have  just  borne  the  last  trial 
which  was  to  put  an  end  to  our  uncertain  wanderings."  ^ 
Heyne,  who  passed  his  life  in  commenting  on  Virgil, 
and  usually  professed  a  great  admiration  for  him,  can- 
not help  being  scandalised  here.  This  legend  of  the 
€aten  tables  seems  to  him  quite  ridiculous,  and  unworthy 
of  the  majesty  of  an  epic  poem.  It  must  be  owned  that 
it  bears  the  character  of  a  peasant's  fable.  They  are 
very  fond  of  telling  these  tales,  which  at  first  seem 
terrible,  but  end  almost  amusingly.  The  one  in  question 
was  doubtless  ancient,  and  had  been  repeated  for  a 
great  length  of  time  in  the  cabins  of  Latian  husband- 
men.^ Virgil  sought  it  there,  and,  far  from  blaming 
him  for  it,  like  Heyne,  I  think  he  must  be  congratu- 
lated on  having  had  the  courage  to  introduce  it  into  his 
poem,  and  the  more  so  that  he  was  not  unaware  that  it 
would  shock  many  of  his  readers.  He  also  knew  those 
railers  and  sceptics  whom  Ovid  addressed  when,  being 
about  to  talk  of  old  Janus  and  his  ridiculous  surnames, 
he  says  to  them,  ''  You  are  going  to  langh."     He  has 


1  ^n.,  YII.  107. 

2  Probably  certain  rites  in  the  worship  of  the  Penates  had  given 
rise  to  it.  It  was  customary  to  offer  those  little  gods  the  first  fruits  of 
the  repast,  and  these  were  presented  to  them  on  slices  of  bread 
called  mensce  panicecc.  Naturally  they  were  sacred,  and  only  in  case 
of  a  terrible  famine  would  anyone  dare  to  touch  them.  To  eat 
the  panicece  would  therefore  simply  mean  to  suffer  from  one  of  those 
scarcities  which  force  one  to  respect  nothing.  Such  must  be  the  origin 
of  the  prediction  made  to  the  Trojans,  and  which  frightened  them  so 
much.  The  good-humoured  ingenuity  of  the  Latian  peasantry  found 
the  means  related  by  Virgil  to  fulfil  the  oracle  at  small  cost. 


254  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

even  made  visible  attempts  to  disarm  them,  and  has 
obviously  tried  to  prepare  these  malicious  wits  for  this 
rustic  story,  and  familiarise  them  with  it.  In  order 
that  they  may  be  less  surprised  on  hearing  it  told,  he 
has  it  announced  several  times  in  advance.  With  this 
task  he  charges  the  Harpies,  old  Greek  divinities — 
coarse,  a  little  grotesque,  and  quite  suited  for  the  office. 
As  for  the  narrative  itself,  I  have  just  quoted  it  in  full,. 
and  the  skill  with  which  it  is  managed  is  obvious. 
There  are  none  of  those  little  jokes,  as  in  Ovid,  designed 
to  show  that  the  poet  is  not  taken  in  by  the  tale  he 
is  telling;  all  is  simple  and  serious.  Yet  we  must 
remark  the  part  given  to  lulus  in  this  matter.  It  is  he 
who  perceives  that  they  have  eaten  their  tables,  and  who 
says  it.  In  another  mouth  the  thing  might  surprise  \ 
it  is  becoming  in  a  child,  to  whom  such  little  remarks- 
are  natural.  Without  apparent  design,  therefore,  Virgil 
has  set  about  making  us  accept  this  simple  legend  with 
great  cleverness.^ 

The  other  was  more  important,  and  enjoyed  a  much 
greater  popularity  in  the  country.  The  first  adventure,- 
just  related,  assured  ^neas  that  he  had  at  length  set 
foot  upon  the  ground  that  had  been  promised  to  him,. 
and  ordered  him  to  make  a  first  settlement  at  the  very 
spot  where  he  had  disembarked.     But  this  was  not  the 


1  We  have  just  seen  in  Virgil's  narrative  that  ^neas  only  speaks  of 
Anchises.  It  is  he  alone  who  predicted  that  he  would  be  reduced  to 
eat  his  tables.  It  is  therefore  likely  that  the  prediction  of  the  Harpies 
was  added  by  the  poet  later  on.  I  do  not  think  it  rash  to  suppose, 
as  I  have  just  said,  that  Virgil  only  did  so  because  he  feared  the  bad 
effect  his  narrative  might  produce  on  some  readers,  and  wished  to- 
justify  it,  and  prepare  them  for  it  in  advance. 


OSTIA   AND    LAVINIUM.  255 

end  of  his  fortune.  The  Trojans  will  not  remain  in 
this  kind  of  intrenched  camp  which  they  are  about  to 
construct  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  They  must  leave 
it,  in  order  to  advance  to  greater  conquests,  plunging 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  interior  of  the  country,  and 
building  a  new  town  each  time  they  stop.  This  march, 
with  Eome  for  its  goal,  must  be  known  to  ^neas.  He 
deserves  to  be  admitted  to  the  secrets  of  the  future, 
since  he  has  had  so  much  trouble  in  preparing  it. 
Were  he  only  w^orking  for  himself,  he  would  long  since 
have  been  fixed  on  some  quiet  spot  of  earth,  there  to 
end  his  troubled  existence  in  peace.  But  he  belongs 
to  his  descendants,  and  must  not  deprive  them  of  the 
country  over  which  they  are  called  to  reign,  or  of  the 
glory  that  awaits  them.  Is  it  not  just  that,  to  console 
him  for  the  toils  and  perils  he  suffers,  he  may  at  least 
know  what  is  to  happen  after  him,  and  foresee  the  great 
destinies  in  the  preparation  of  which  he  is  working  so 
hard  ?     This  is  how  the  gods  reveal  the  future  to  him. 

When  ^neas  can  no  longer  doubt  the  hostility  of 
the  Latins,  he  is  anxious  about  the  war  that  threatens 
him,  and  a  prey  to  a  thousand  cares.  As  evening  falls 
he  stretches  himself  upon  the  river  bank,  "  beneath  the 
fresh  vault  of  the  skies,"  ^  and  only  goes  to  sleep  after 
the  others,  late  in  the  night.  During  his  slumbers,  a 
god  appears  to  him,  "  clad  in  a  light  purple  tunic  with 
azure  folds,  his  head  covered  with  a  crown  of  reeds." 
He  introduces  himself.  It  is  the  river-god  himself,  by 
whose  brink  the  hero  is  resting,  the  Tiber,  beloved  of 
heaven,  who  flows  with  full  banks  through  fertile  plains. 

1  JEn.,  VIII.  26. 


256     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

"  Ego  sum,  pleno  quern  flumine  cernis 
Stringentem  ripas  et  innguia  culta  secantem, 
Cceruleus  Tibris,  ccelo  gratissimus  amnis." 

He  begins  by  repeating  to  ^neas,  who  cannot  know 
it  too  well,  that  this  land  is  indeed  the  one  where  he 
must  settle  :  "  Thy  promised  home  is  here ;  and  here 
must  thy  Penates  dwell."  And  that  he  may  not  think 
himself  the  dupe  of  a  dream,  a  manifest  sign  of  the 
divine  will  is  announced  to  him:  "Under  the  oaks 
that  cover  this  shore,  thou  shalt  find  an  enormous  sow 
outstretched,  which  has  just  brought  forth  thirty  little 
ones.  She  is  white,  and  her  little  ones,  white  like  their 
mother,  hang  from  her  teats.  This  is  the  spot  where 
thou  must  raise  the  city  thou  art  to  build  (Lavinium) ; 
it  is  the  end  of  all  thy  toils.  Thence,  later  on,  after 
thirty  years  have  come  round,  shalt  start  thy  son, 
Ascanius,  to  go  and  found  Alba,  the  noble  city,  whose 
name  shall  recall  its  origin  {Alha,  the  white).  Be  sure 
that  my  predictions  do  not  deceive  thee."  And  indeed, 
on  awakening,  ^neas  finds  the  white  sow  lying  on  the 
bank  with  her  thirty  little  ones,  and  sacrifices  them  to 
Juno. 

This  legend,  like  the  preceding,  is  a  peasant's  tale. 
The  word-play  forming  its  essence,  and  which  explains 
the  name  of  the  town  of  Alba,  sufficiently  shows  its 
origin.  Those  peasants,  moreover,  are  inhabitants  of 
Latium,  a  country  whose  swine  form  its  chief  wealth. 
Varro  the  Elder  speaks  with  vanity  of  those  which  he 
raises  in  his  domains,  and  calls  his  countrymen  "  pig- 
raisers"  by  way  of  compliment  (poondatores  italici). 
Strictly  speaking,  it  may  be  said  that  these  animals 
£gure  more  advantageously  on  a  farm  than  in  an  epic 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  257 

poem.  Homer  doubtless  spoke  of  them  without 
repugnance ;  yet  when,  in  the  Iliads  Jupiter  wishes  to 
restore  courage  to  the  combatants  by  a  favourable  omen, 
he  usually  sends  them  an  eagle  rending  a  serpent,  or  hold- 
ing a  fawn  in  his  talons.  An  eagle,  it  must  be  owned, 
looks  better  than  a  pig  or  a  sow.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  Virgil  himself,  in  his  Georgics — that  is  to  say,  in  a 
work  in  which  he  sanof  of  Italian  a^^riculture — did  not 
give  these  animals  quite  the  place  they  deserved  to  filL 
He  only  speaks  of  the  pig  two  or  three  times ;  and 
again  in  one  of  these  passages  he  has  thought  fit  to 
lend  him  an  almost  heroic  attitude  entirely  out  of 
keeping  with  its  nature  : 

"  Ipse  ruit  dentesque  sahellicus  exacuit  sus, 
Et  pede  prosubigit  terram."  ^■ 

We  no  longer  find  the  same  timid  precautions  in  the 
J^neid.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  introduce  the  white 
sow  and  her  little  ones  into  it,  nor  did  he  ask  himself 
what  the  fastidious  would  think  about  it.  Here  again 
we  must  in  some  degree  approve  his  courage. 

All  agree  that  when  Virgil  reproduced  the  legend  it 
had  been  greatly  modified  by  time ;  but  even  his  own 
narrative  of  it  admits  of  its  being  brought  back  to  its 
primitive  form.  Whatever  he  may  pretend,  it  was  not 
created  to  explain  the  rise  of  Lavinium.  Those  who 
first  imagined  this  artless  fable  had  Alba,  then  the 
metropolis  of  the  Latin  League,  in  mind.  They  related 
that  they  were  one  day  assembled  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Albanus,  their  sacred  mountain,  consulting  the  gods  as 

1  Georg.,  III.  255. 
R 


258  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

to  the  spot  where  they  should  build  their  capital. 
Suddenly,  during  the  sacrifice,  the  pregnant  sow  they 
were  about  to  immolate  escaped  towards  the  mountain. 
They  followed  her  at  a  distance,  and  at  the  place 
where  she  stopped  to  give  birth  to  her  young  ones,  they 
founded  their  city.  Legends  of  this  kind  were  not 
uncommon  in  the  ancient  mythology  of  the  Aryan 
races.  At  BovilL^  it  is  a  bull,  at  Ephesus  a  boar, 
which,  escaping  from  the  hands  of  the  sacrificers, 
indicated  the  spot  where  the  town  was  to  be  raised. 
Here  the  sow  was  preferred,  because  it  is  the  animal 
which  it  was  customary  to  immolate  on  the  occasion  of 
treaties  of  alliance,  and  the  thirty  little  ones  represented 
the  thirty  cities  composing  the  Confederation.  ~  As  we 
see,  everything  is  simple  and  natural  in  the  primitive 
story,  and  we  do  not  need  an  augur  or  an  aruspice  to 
enable  us  to  grasp  its  meaning. 

Later,  when  the  legend  of  ^Eneas  was  implanted 
in  Eome,  and  the  Trojan  hero  w^as  made  the  founder 
of  Lavinium,  the  sacred  city  of  the  Penates,  it  was 
desired  to  transplant  the  marvellous  tale,  which  had  been 
invented  for  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Latin  League,  to 
the  new  one.  But  it  could  not  be  adapted  to  its 
new  purpose  without  undergoing  some  changes.  It  was 
supposed  that  the  white  sow  stopped  where  ^neas 
built  Lavinium ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  was  still 
admitted  that  it  had  given  its  name  to  Alba,  so  the 
prodigy  found  itself  relating  to  two  cities  at  once, 
which  is  difficult  to  understand.  Moreover,  it  was 
imagined  that  the  thirty  little  ones  meant  the  thirty 
years  separating  the  foundation  of  the  two  cities. 
Tirgil  was  forced,  by  the  very  subject  he  had  chosen, 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  259 

to  adopt  this  last  form  of  the  legend,  which  was  not, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  most  simple  and  most  natural. 
But  what  mattered  those  little  obscurities  of  detail  in 
the  narration  of  a  miracle  ?  The  substance  of  the 
adventure  remained ;  it  was  still  a  question  of  the  sow 
and  her  little  ones,  and  people  whose  youth  had  been 
charmed  by  these  wonderful  tales  were  happy  to  find 
them  again  in  Virgil's  poem.^ 


III. 

LAVINIUM — ITS  DECADENCE  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE — WOR- 
SHIP OF  THE  PENATES — VESTIGES  OF  THE  ANCIENT 
CITY  —  PRATICA  —  OUTLOOK  FROM  THE  BORGHESE 
TOWER — THE  PLAIN  OF  THE  LATIUM — LATIN  AND 
SABINE  ELEMENTS  IN  THE  ROMAN  CITY. 

By  the  prediction  of  the  Tiber,  we  are  now  led  to 
speak  of  Lavinium.  This  town  is  often  mentioned  in  the 
^Eneid,  although  it  does  not  yet  exist.  This  is  because 
in  reality  it  forms  the  only  link  connecting  the  legend 
of  ^neas  with  the  history  of  Eome.     In  itself  a  small 


1  Virgil  has  even  introduced  a  new  obscurity  and  inaccuracy  into 
the  legend.  Admitting  the  white  sow  to  have  been  found,  as  he 
says,  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  it  should  have  been  supposed  that 
she  fled  to  the  spot  where  Lavinium  was  to  rise.  But  he  thought 
it  would  be  a  ridiculous  sight  to  show  .ffineas  and  his  soldiers  running 
for  nearly  eight  kilometres  after  a  sow,  so  he  once  more  bravely  made  up 
his  mind,  and  had  her  immolated  on  the  spot  where  she  was  found.  But 
then  one  no  longer  understands  the  expression  "/s  locus  urhis  crit" 
for  Lavinium  is  six  miles  from  the  banks  of  the  Tiber.  Servius  says  we 
must  translate  as  if  there  were  "  in  ea  regione" — that  is  to  say,  in  the 
country,  in  the  environs — which  is  very  vague  and  arbitrary. 


260  THE   COUNTEY   OF   HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

hamlet  in  the  midst  of  a  solitary  plain,  it  must  be 
very  indifferent  to  the  masters  of  the  world.  Virgil 
several  times  made  a  point  of  reminding  them  of  the 
right  it  had  to  their  respect  and  their  affection.  At 
the  very  beginning  of  his  work,  Jupiter,  consoling 
Venus  for  her  son's  misadventures,  unveils  to  her  the 
future  reserved  for  his  descendants.  He  first  shows 
her  ^neas  founding  Lavinium,  in  order  to  establish 
his  homeless  gods  there.  It  is  the  starting-point  of 
those  glorious  destinies.  Later,  from  Lavinium  will 
issue  Alba,  and  Alba  in  its  turn  will  give  birth  to 
Kome,  so  that  all  the  greatness  of  Eome  is  referable  ta 
the  founding  of  the  city  of  ^neas.  The  Penates,  for 
whom  he  must  build  a  dwelling  on  a  hill  of  Latium, 
are  the  pledge  of  the  eternal  empire  promised  by  the 
gods  to  the  nation  who  wear  the  toga : 

"  His  ego  nee  metas  rerum  nee  tempora  pono  ; 
Imperium  sine  fine  dedi."  ^ 

In  Virgil's  day  the  little  town  must  already  have 
been  half  deserted.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  common  lot 
of  most  of  those  he  speaks  of,  and  which  make  so  great 
a  figure  in  his  poem.  He  himself  tells  us,  with  regard 
to  Ardea,  the  capital  of  the  Eutuli,  "  it  has  still  a  great 
name,  but  its  fortune  is  past."  ^  I  picture  to  myself 
that  Ardea  was  then,  as  now,  a  village  of  a  few  houses 
surrounded  by  old  walls,  upon  a  steep  hill.  Strabo, 
who  went  over  the  whole  of  this  country  in  the  time 
of  Augustus,  tells  us  that,  after  the  ravages  of  the 
Samnites,  it  could  not  raise  itself  from  its  disasters, 

^yEii.,  1.276.  '^  Ibid.,  Yll.  4.12. 


OSTIA  AND  lAVINIUM.  261 


>r> 


and  that,  of  the  ancient  and  illustrious  cities  datin 
from  ^neas,  only  vestiges  remained.  A  hundred 
years  later  Lucan  bears  witness  to  the  same  abandon- 
ment. He  says :  "  The  sites  of  Veii,  Gabii,  and  Cora 
are  marked  by  ruins.  Where  Alba  rose,  or  the  Penates 
of  Lavinium  had  their  temple,  nothing  but  uninhabited 
fields  are  any  longer  seen."  ^  He  adds  that  everywhere 
the  walls  of  cities  are  too  vast  for  their  inhabitants ; 
that  the  fields  lack  husbandmen,  and  that  a  single  city 
suffices  to  contain  all  the  Eomans.  He  doubtless  means 
that  this  town  has  ended  by  absorbing  Italy .^  Eome 
was  already  making  a  vacuum  around  her,  and  from 
the  Augustan  age  it  might  be  foreseen  that  she  would 
end  by  encircling  herself  with  a  desert.  It  is  therefore 
likely  that  most  of  the  Latin  towns,  when  Virgil  knew 
them,  had  already  begun  to  assume  the  desolate  look  they 
wear  in  our  days.  It  was  a  reason  for  him  to  love 
them  more.  They  must  have  even  pleased  him  by 
their  very  sadness  and  their  solitude ;  and  rich,  flourish- 
ing, populous,  they  would  have  inspired  him  with  less 
affection.     His   biographers   relate  that   he  felt  ill  at 


1  Lucan,  Phars.,  VII.  391. 

2  Bonstetten,  describing  the  state  of  this  j'art  of  the  country  in 
1804,  speaks  very  much  like  Lucan :  *'  Some  of  the  fifty-three  nations 
that  formerly  existed  in  Latium  are  represented  by  a  single  house. 
The  great  city  of  Gabii  is  now  merely  the  abode  of  a  herd  of  cows. 
Fidenfe,  where  so  many  thousand  men  perished  by  the  fall  of  an 
amphitheatre,  is  a  broken-down  sheep-stall ;  and  Cures,  the  illustrious 
country  of  Numa,  an  inn.  Antemnte,  with  its  superb  towers,  Collatia, 
Cenina,  Veii,  Crustumerium,  and  so  many  other  towns  which  proved 
the  flourishing  state  of  Latium,  were  swallowed  up  in  a  few  years  by 
infant  Rome,  already  taught  to  devastate  the  earth,  and  we  are  still 
searching  for  the  spot  where  they  existed." 


262  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND  VIRGIL. 

ease  in  large,  populous  towns,  and  shunned  them  as 
much  as  he  could.  On  the  other  hand,  he  must  have 
visited  these  poor  abandoned  cities  willingly.  The 
striking  contrast  between  their  ancient  fortune  and 
their  present  wretchedness  the  more  endeared  them 
to  him,  and  one  feels  that  he  never  speaks  of  them 
without  emotion. 

Among  all  these  half-ruined  and  deserted  ancient 
cities  Lavinium  had  a  particular  importance.  "  Here," 
said  Varro  solemnly,  "  here  are  the  Penates  of  the 
Eoman  people"  {ihi  dii  Penates  nostri)}  They  had 
shown  in  an  important  circumstance  that  they  would 
not  dwell  elsewhere.  It  was  related  that  Ascanius 
having  tried  to  take  them  with  him  to  the  town 
which  he  had  built,  they  twice  left  their  temple  at 
Alba,  although  the  doors  had  been  carefully  shut,  and 
returned  by  night  to  Lavinium.  They  had  to  be  left 
there,  since  they  would  not  leave  their  old  home ;  and 
as  they  would  have  been  angry  had  they  lost  all  their 
worshippers,  six  hundred  inhabitants  were  sent,  who  were 
forced  to  dwell  there  and  ofi'er  them  sacrifices.^  Thence- 
forth Lavinium  was  entirely  consecrated  to  their  wor- 
ship. It  was  a  kind  of  holy  town,  like  a  few  that  are 
still  left  in  Italy,  containing  nothing  but  churches  and 
convents,  and  where  only  monks  are  met  with.  There 
was  no  dearth  of  priests  in  Lavinium  either,  if  we  are  to 
believe  the  inscriptions,  which  mention  a  great  number, 
and  even  bid  us  observe  the  very  characteristic  circum- 
stance, that  they  kept  the  ancient  costume  in  all  its 

^De  Ling,  Lot.,  V.  144. 

-Denys  of  Halicarnassus,  Ant.  Rom.,  I.  67. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  263 

rigour,  whereas  at  Rome  it  had  been  modified,  in  order 
to  make  it  more  convenient,^  The  Temple  of  the  Penates 
was  doubtless  the  most  important  in  the  country.  It 
was  much  visited,  but  it  not  being  allowed  to  penetrate 
into  the  sanctuary,  considerable  imcertainty  existed 
as  to  what  these  gods  might  be.  Some  stated  that 
they  were  represented  under  the  form  of  small  seated 
statues  with  spears  in  their  hands,  and  others  that  they 
were  merely  pieces  of  iron  or  bronze,  not  even  formed  in 
the  human  shape.  The  devout  Denys  of  Halicarnassus, 
very  much  perplexed  between  these  contrary  assertions, 
gets  out  of  the  difficulty  by  saying  one  must  not  speak 
of  that  which  the  gods  do  not  allow  one  to  know.^ 
However,  it  was  not  neccesary  to  know  in  order  to 
respect  them,  since  they  had  worked  miracles  that 
proved  their  power.  It  is  said  that  two  young  maidens, 
doubtless  two  vestals,  having  come  to  sleep  in  their 
temple  in  order  to  be  relieved  of  certain  reproaches  of 
which  they  had  been  the  object,  one  of  them,  who  was 
not  quite  stainless,  was  in  the  course  of  the  night  struck 
by  a  thunderbolt,  while  the  other  slept  at  her  side  with- 
out awaking.3  There  were  also  at  Lavinium  other 
religious  edifices,  which  naturally  claimed  to  go  back 
to  the  time  of  ^neas,  and  in  their  neighbourhood  his 
tomb  was  shown.  "  It  is,"  says  Denys,  "  a  little  mound, 
about  which  have  been  disposed  trees  in  admirable 
order,  and  worthy  to  be  seen."  *  In  the  Forum  of  the 
city  statues  of  bronze  recalled  some  of  the  legends  that 


^Servius,  in  ^En.,  VIII.  661.         "  Antiq.  Rom.,  I.  67. 
3  Servius,  in  urEn.,  III.  12.  ■^  Antiq.  J:om.,  I.  64. 


264     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HOKACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

had  announced  his  prowess.  As  may  be  imagined,  the 
famous  sow  with  its  thirty  little  ones  was  not  forgotten. 
It  was  often  in  question  in  Lavinium.  It  was  thought 
they  possessed  the  cabin  where  ^neas  had  immolated 
it ;  and  what  is  still  more  surprising,  the  priests  showed 
the  sow  herself  to  visitors,  preserved  in  brine.''  We 
thus  see  that  the  worship  of  relics  is  of  ancient  date 
in  Italy. 

Holy  towns  are  usually  dull  ones.  People  are  so 
busied  there  with  sacred  interests  that  worldly  pleasures 
are  neglected,  and  so  there  is  generally  a  lack  of  anima- 
tion and  gaiety.  Lavinium  could  not  have  been  an 
exception  to  the  common  rule.  Yet  the  old  town  had 
its  days  of  festivity.  Every  year,  at  fixed  dates,  priests 
came  there  from  Eome  to  celebrate  ancient  ceremonies, 
and  the  first  magistrates  of  the  Eepublic,  dictators,  con- 
suls, praetors,  came  there  to  sacrifice  to  the  Penates, 
when  they  took  office.^  A  general  would  not  have 
undertaken  a  great  military  expedition  without  having 
first  gone  there  to  consult  the  gods.  It  is  related  that 
when  the  consul  Hostilius  Mancinus  went  thither  to 
consult  the  augurs  before  leaving  for  Spain,  the  sacred 
chickens  fled  into  the  woods.  The  consul  paid  no  heed 
to  the  warning,  but  went  and  got  beaten  by  the  Lusi- 
tanians.^  But  beyond  these  solemn  occasions  which 
from  time  to  time  enlivened  the  town,  it  is  probable 
that  life  then  was  very  monotonous,  and  that  it  declined 
day  by  day.  It  is  not  known  at  what  date  and  in  con- 
sequence of  what  events  it  was  joined  to  its  neighbour 


^  Yarro,  Dere  rust.,  11.  4,  18.  ^  ^^.^^.i^j,,  in  ^En.,  HI.  12. 

•^  Yaleriiio  ]\Iaximus,  I.  6,  7. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  265 

Laurentium,  the  ancient  city  of  Latinus,  which  was 
drawing  its  last  breath  beside  it.  Thenceforth  its 
citizens  took  the  name  of  Zaurentes  Zavinates,  and  the 
town  itself  was  sometimes  called  Laurolavinium.  In- 
scriptions show  us  that  the  Emperors  made  a  few  efforts 
to  arrest  its  decadence.  It  was  naturally  those  most 
zealous  for  the  worship  of  the  gods,  or  most  friendly  to 
the  ancient  traditions,  who  chiefly  cared  to  busy  them- 
selves about  it ;  for  example,  good  Antoninus,  who  all 
his  life  showed  so  much  respect  for  the  old  memories  of 
Eome,  or  Galerius,  the  ardent  persecutor  of  the  Chris- 
tians. We  still  find  in  the  correspondence  of  Symmachus, 
the  last  of  the  pagans,  a  mark  of  affection  towards  this 
town,  which  he  calls  "  religiosa  civitas."  At  this  moment 
Christianity  was  victorious,  invasion  was  approaching, 
and  Lavinium  was  about  to  vanish  entirely,  with  the 
worship  of  the  Penates. 

Nothing  now  remains  of  the  ancient  town,  and  its 
name  is  no  longer  found  upon  the  map.  Its  situation, 
however,  may  be  given  with  accuracy.  The  learned 
agree  in  believing  that  it  was  replaced  by  Pratica,  and 
everything  proves  that  they  are  right.  Like  Lavinium, 
Pratica  is  16  miles  (24  kilometres)  from  Eome,  at  24 
stadia  (4  kilometres)  from  the  sea,  and  about  half-way 
between  Ostia  and  Antium.  In  turning  up  the  soil  at 
haphazard  many  ancient  remains  have  been  found, 
proving  that  on  this  spot  must  formerly  have  risen  a 
town  of  some  importance;  and  as  these  remains  are  some- 
times fragments  of  vases  belonging  to  ancient  buildings, 
and  sometimes  pieces  of  marble  and  porphyry  which 
I'ccall  the  most  sumptuous  periods,  Nibby  concludes 
that  this  city  must  go  back  to  the  most  ancient  times, 


266     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

and  that  it  still  existed  under  the  Empire.  Finally, 
numerous  inscriptions  have  been  found  at  Pratica  or  in 
the  vicinity,  some  of  them  bearing  the  name  of  Lavinium, 
which  definitively  settles  all  doubts. 

Pratica  occupies  a  plateau  of  slight  extent,  rising  on 
nearly  every  side  precipitously  from  the  plain.  When 
we  have  been  round  it,  and  seen  how  difficult  of  access 
are  the  houses  of  the  village,  firmly  supported  as  they 
are  by  the  rock,  we  easily  understand  the  reasons  ^nea& 
may  have  had  for  building  his  town  in  this  place.  He 
found  himself  safe  there  against  the  unforeseen  attacks 
of  the  Eutuli  or  the  Volsci,  of  all  those  peoples  whose 
habit  and  pleasure,  according  to  Virgil,  was  to  live  by 
rapine : 

"  Semperque  recentes 
Convectare  jurat  prcedas  et  vivere  rapfo.'' ' 

On  the  other  hand,  the  narrowness  of  the  plateau  ex- 
plains that  it  could  not  long  suffice  a  population  which, 
in  the  beginning,  was  continually  on  the  increase.^  We 
have  only  to  glance  at  Pratica  in  order  to  understand 
the  account  of  Livy,  who  tells  us  that  Ascanius,  seeing 
that  his  father's  town  could  not  spread,  resolved  to  quit 
it  and  found  a  new  one  on  Mount  Albanus,  between  the 
mountains  and  the  lake. 

Pratica  can  only  be  entered  by  one  road,  which  is 


'^?i.,  VII.  759. 

2  Pratica  only  occupies  the  site  of  the  citadel  of  Lavinium.  The 
town  itself  probably  extended  into  the  plain,  towards  Ardea.  Many 
remains  of  walls  have  been  found  in  this  direction,  which  may  have 
been  the  city's  boundary.  In  any  case  it  was  small,  and  hampered  in 
its  development  by  accidents  of  the  ground. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  267 

probably  the  one  followed  by  the  procession  of  consuls 
and  praetors  when  they  came  to  perform  some  sacred 
ceremony  at  the  Temple  of  the  Penates.  The  roadway, 
after  circling  the  village  for  a  short  distance,  rises  to 
it  abruptly  by  a  somewhat  rude  causeway,  and  enters  it 
beneath  a  gate  which  might  be  easily  defended.  All 
here  is  evidently  well  prepared  to  offer  a  safe  asylum  to 
a  few  husbandmen  desirous  to  protect  themselves  from 
pillage.  The  same  cause  explains  the  founding  of 
Lavinium  and  Pratica.  The  people  who,  after  the  ruin 
of  the  ancient  town,  assembled  anew  on  this  narrow 
table-land,  wished  to  find  safety  from  the  incursions  of 
the  Barbary  pirates  who,  until  the  taking  of  Algiers, 
never  ceased  to  infest  these  shores.  When  night  fell, 
the  husbandmen  hastened  to  quit  the  plain,  climbed 
into  their  little  fortified  enclosures,  and  the  door  once 
well  secured,  they  could  at  least  sleep  in  peace.  It  is 
thought  that  the  village  of  Pratica,^  whose  name  is  first 
heard  in  the  ninth  century,  was  in  the  course  of  the 
Middle  Ages  several  times  abandoned  and  rebuilt.  As  it 
stands,  it  is  not  more  than  two  or  three  centuries  old. 
It  contains  but  one  piazza  and  a  few  streets  somewhat 
less  dirty  than  those  of  other  Italian  villages.  The 
piazza,  regular  and  sufficiently  large,  has  been  decorated 
with  a  few  fragments  of  antiquity.  These  are  the  little 
village's    titles    of    nobility.^     There    are    capitals    of 


^  The  primitive  form  of  this  word  seems  to  have  been  "Patrica."  Nibby 
thinks  this  name  must  be  derived  from  that  of  Pater  Indigcs — that  is,  of 
^neas — who  was  chiefly  honoured  at  Lavinium.  By  its  modern  name 
it  would  be  the  City,  ^ncas  civitas  Patris, 

2  The  statues  and  inscriptions  have  been  lately  placed  in  the  court" 
yard  of  the  Borghese  Chateau. 


268  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

columns,  fragments  of  statues,  inscriptions  in  honour  of 
Antoninus  and  Galerius,  and  lastly,  a  sort  of  pedestal 
bearing  the  words  "  Silvius  ^neas,  son  of  ^neas  and 
of  Lavinia."  If  this  monument  was  not  the  work  of  an 
amateur  of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  it  very  possibly 
may  be,  it  is  perhaps  the  base  of  some  statue  which 
ornamented  the  Forum  of  Lavinium.  One  side  of  the 
Piazza  is  formed  by  the  front  of  a  large  house,  devoid 
of  any  architectural  pretensions.  This  is  the  Palazzo 
of  the  Borghese  family.  Pratica  has  belonged  to  them 
for  nearly  three  hundred  years,  and  constitutes  one  of 
their  most  important  baronies. 

This  does  not  imply  that  the  village  is  very  populous. 
It  numbers  but  the  seven  or  eight  families  who  dare  to 
remain  there  all  the  year  round.  TJ)e  rest  of  the 
population  is  nomadic,  and  consists  of  peasants  who  in 
the  winter  descend  from  the  mountains,  and  return  home 
as  soon  as  the  heat  approaches  and  the  malaria  begins 
to  be  dangerous.  It  is  much  the  same  from  one  end  of 
Italy  to  the  other,  wherever  marsh  fever  rages.  Francois 
Lenormant,  when  travelling  in  Grecia  Magna,  found  the 
custom  again  there.^  The  colours  in  which  he  painted 
the  miseries  of  those  poor  Calabrian  peasants,  who  come 
every  year  to  work  in  this  unwholesome  soil,  have  not 
been  forgotten ;  and  I  bear  witness  that  the  pictures  he 
drew  of  them  produced  the  liveliest  emotion  in  the 
country  itself :  so  true  is  it  that  one  becomes  indifferent 
to  spectacles  which  one  has  daily  before  one's  eyes,  and 
that  it  is  good  for  a  stranger  now  and  then  to  tell  us 
what    happens   in    our    own   home.      Not   long  since, 

^  La  Grande  Grece,  by  Fran9ois  Lenormant. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  269 

M.  de  la  Blanchere,  who  made  a  stay  at  Terracina  and 
courageously  explored  the  Pontine  marshes,  had  an 
opportunity  of  observing  and  describing  the  same  cus- 
toms. There,  too,  the  fields  are  deserted  during  half 
the  year — the  emigrants  arriving  in  the  month  of 
October.  Generally  the  same  persons  settle  in  the 
same  spots.  They  descend  the  Apennines  and  the 
Abruzzi  together,  and  come  to  resume  their  work. 
"Each,"  says  M.  de  la  Blanchere,  "goes  to  find  his 
lestra — that  is  to  say,  a  clearing  made  by  himself  or  a 
predecessor — often  by  an  ancestor — for  families  are 
perpetuated  during  centuries  upon  the  same  soil.  A 
staccionata,  or  rough  fence  of  brambles,  contains 
the  beasts ;  hive  -  shaped  cabins  shelter  the  people. 
On  his  own  account,  or  that  of  another,  the  occupant 
carries  on  one  or  many  of  the  thousand  vocations  of  the 
macchia — shepherd,  cowherd,  swineherd,  for  the  most 
part;  sometimes  a  woodcutter,  and  always  a  poacher 
and  a  prowler,  using  the  macchia  without  scruple,  like 
a  savage  of  the  virgin  forest,  he  lives,  and  by  his  work 
makes  a  revenue  for  his  own  and  the  soil's  master,  who 
has  confided  his  beasts  to  him — that  is  to  say,  when  they 
are  not  his  personal  property.  Thus  six  or  seven 
months  pass.  June  comes,  the  marslies  dry  up,  the 
pools  of  the  forest  are  exhausted,  the  children  tremble 
with  fever,  the  news  from  the  country  is  satisfactory,  and 
in  a  fortnight  the  roads  are  covered  with  people  going 
back  to  the  mountains  again.  Family  by  family,  lestra 
by  lestra,  the  macchia  empties.  Only  men  exhorting 
their  horses,  asses,  or  their  women,  laden  with  what  is  to 
be  brought  away,  are  met  with ;  and  those  whom  July 
surprises  in  these  regions  are  few  indeed.     The  forest 


270  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

is  abandoned  to  twenty  species  of  gad-flies  and  insects, 
which  make  life  there  impossible."  ^ 

This  is  what  happens  on  almost  all  the  coast  of  Latium. 
I  own,  however,  that  at  Ostia  the  picture  seemed  to  me 
sadder  than  M.  Blanchere  represents  it.  There  the 
immigrants  are  all  husbandmen  who  come  to  sow  the 
ground  and  get  in  the  crops.  At  night  they  crowd 
together  in  cabins  made  of  old  planks  covered  with 
straw.  I  visited  one,  narrow  and  long,  which  resembled 
a  passage.  It  had  no  windows,  and  was  only  lighted 
by  the  doors  placed  at  each  extremity.  The  arrange- 
ments were  of  the  simplest ;  in  the  middle  the  sauce- 
pans in  which  the  soup  is  made ;  on  either  side,  in  dark 
recesses,  men,  women,  and  children  lie  pell-mell  on 
heaps  of  straw  that  are  never  renewed.  Directly  you 
enter  the  cabin  a  foetid  odour  seizes  you  by  the  throat. 
As  you  pass  on,  eyes  unaccustomed  to  this  darkness  can 
make  out  nothing.  You  only  hear  the  moans  of  the 
sick  whom  the  fever  holdL  co  their  straw,  and  who  lean 
forward  to  ask  the  passer-by  for  alms.  I  should  never 
have  believed  that  a  human  being  could  live  in  such  a 
hole.  At  Pratica  there  are  at  least  houses  decent 
enough  in  appearance.  They  are  empty  half  the  year, 
and  much  too  full  the  rest  of  the  time ;  but  the  immi- 
OTants  who  crowd  them  have  not  to  suffer  like  those 
who  wallow  in  the  barracks  at  Ostia.  The  little  village, 
moreover,  does  not  look  very  miserable.  It  even  possesses 
a  great  luxury  in  the  shape  of  an  osteria  con  cucina, 
which  remains  open  during  all  the  winter  season,  and 
does  not  seem  to  lack  customers.     In  spring  the  land- 

^De  la  Blanchere,  Tcrracine^  p.  11. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  271 

lord  takes  flight  like  everybody  else,  only  leaving  a 
wretched  servant,  a  victim  to  the  malaria,  to  take  care 
of  the  house.  I  found  myself  there  with  some  people 
of  the  country  one  day  when  it  poured  with  rain ;  for 
want  of  anything  better  to  do,  they  played  at  cards. 
They  were  cccporali,  or  labour-masters,  and  their 
dignity  was  seen  in  their  costume.  They  wore  under 
their  large  green-lined  brown  mantles  a  gallooned 
waistcoat.  These  insignia,  together  with  their  short 
breeches  and  pointed  hats  ornamented  with  feathers, 
gave  them  a  melodramatic  air,  of  which  they  seemed 
very  proud.  Looking  at  them,  I  thought  that  certainly 
no  village  inn  in  France  could  offer  a  collection 
■of  such  types.  The  French  peasant  does  not  care  to 
assume  theatrical  poses,  or  to  attract  the  attention 
of  strangers.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  so  timid  and 
cunning  that  he  will  rather  give  himself  an  air  of  sim- 
plicity and  innocence  in  order  that  he  may  not  be 
mistrusted.  One  has  to  be  careful  not  to  judge  him 
quite  by  his  appearance,  or  think  him  as  foolish  as  he 
looks.  The  peasantry  of  these  parts  have  not  the  same 
character.  Nature  has  given  them  a  ferocious  look,  and 
to  nature  they  willingly  add.  One  would  think  they 
desired  to  inspire  fear,  and  to  appear  more  brigand-like 
than  they  really  are.  But,  however  this  may  be,  vulgar 
faces  are  rarely  found  among  them,  and  a  glance  at 
them  suffices  to  convince  one  that  they  belong  to  an 
energetic  and  intelligent  race.  Since  they  all  come 
from  the  Appenines  and  the  neighbouring  heights,  I 
have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  I  have  before  my 
eyes  descendants  of  the  Marsi,  the  Equi,  and  the  Sam- 
nites,  of  all  those  rough  mountaineers  whom  Eome  had 


272  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

SO   much  difficulty  in  subduing,  and  who   afterwards 
helped  her  to  subdue  the  world. 

One  of  the  curiosities  of  Pratica  is  the  tower  rising 
from  the  middle  of  the  Borghese  Palace.    It  is  seen  from 
every  direction,  and   serves   to   direct   shepherds  and 
travellers   in   a   country  where  beaten   roads  are  not 
always  found.     It  was  doubtless  built  to  overlook  the 
vicinity  at  a  period  when  unforeseen  piratical  attacks- 
were  to  be  feared,  and  it  enables  one  to  penetrate  all  the 
windings  of  the  valleys,  and  observe  all  the  shore  from 
Ostia  to  Porto  d'Anzio.     From  the  uppermost  storey 
the   view   is   marvellous,   but   I   will   not   proceed   to* 
describe   its   beauties.     However   great   the   desire   in 
these  high  spots  to  cast  one's  eyes  afar,  and  although 
the  spectacle  of  these  beautiful  lines  of  mountains  that 
close  the  horizon  is  incomparably  grand,  I  own  that  I 
feel  rather  tempted  to  look  down  at  my  feet.     I  am 
absorbed  by  an  entirely  historical  interest.     I  think  of 
Eome,  whose  belfries  and  houses  I  can  distinguish,  and 
I    endeavour    to    follow    hence    the    phases    of    her 
budding  fortune.     This  ground  which  surrounds  me  on 
every  side  is  Latium — "  Old  Latium  "  as  it  was  called 
(Latmm  vetus  Prisci  Latini).     It  is  here,  according  to  a 
celebrated  expression,  "  that  Eome  struck  her  first  roots" 
{ex  hac  tenui  radice  crevit  imperium  )  ;  it  is  in  this  little 
corner  of  the  land  that  the  Eomans  must  have  become- 
imbued  with  their  fundamental  qualities.     I  take  it  in 
entirely,  and  while  carefully  examining  it,  I  ask  myself 
whether  there  is  anything  in  the  configuration  of  the 
soil  and  the  nature  of  the  country  to  account  for  the 
character  of  the  inhabitants. 

From  this  height  at  which  the  inequalities  of  the 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  273 

ground  disappear,  Latium  seems  to  be  a  vast  uniform 
plain.    On  looking  at  it,  a  reflection  of  Schwegler's,  from 
which  he  drew  important  conclusions,  occurs  to  my 
mind.^     He  bids  us  remark  how  easy  to  traverse  and 
how  accessible  to  the  stranger  this  plain  appears  to  be 
at    first    sight.      Towards    the    south    I    see   neither 
mountains  nor  river  separating  it  from  the  Volsci ;  to 
the  north  it  is  bathed  by  a  navigable  stream,  the  sea 
bounds  it  to  the  west,  and  it  possesses  a  long  line  of 
coast.      The   ancients   had   already  observed  that  the 
countries   bordering    the    sea    are   those   which   most 
quickly  attain  to  a  brilliant  civilization  ;  but  that,  in 
general,  they  pay  for  this  rapid  progress  by  an  early 
decay.     "  They   are   prompt   to   change,"  says   Cicero, 
"and  greedy  of  novelty.     They  like  to  listen  to  all 
those  travellers,  who  bring  them  their  ideas  and  their 
customs  with  their  wares.      They  end  by  resembling 
those  isles  of  Greece,  more  troubled  and  unstable  in 
their    institutions    than    the    wave   that    beats    their 
shores."  -     Happily,  Latium  is  not  quite  what  it  seems 
when  viewed  from  aloft  and  from  afar.     This  plain,  at 
flrst  sight  apparently  quite  unbroken,  hides  undulations 
of  ground,  heights  and  valleys,  which  sometimes  render 
circulation  sufficiently  inconvenient.      This  navigable 
river  is  not  easy  of  access,  on  account  of  its  shifting 
sands ;  this  long  coast  has  no  natural  ports.     It  follows 
that  the  visits  of  the  foreigner  did  not  produce  all  their 
usual  effects.     External  influence  doubtless  made  itself 
felt,  but  it  was  tempered  by  a  groundwork  of  natural 


'^  Rom.  Geshiclde,  I.  4. 
2 Cicero,  De  Rep.,  II.  4. 
S 


274  THE   COUNTRY    OF    HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

qualities  which  nothing  would  quite  destroy.  I  do  not 
know  how ;  but  the  taste  for  novelties  and  the  love  of 
tradition  blended.  Commerce  and  industry  did  not 
replace  agriculture.  IS'ature  and  the  soil  had  made  the 
Latins  husbandmen,  and  field-work  was  always  the  most 
honoured  of  all  vocations  among  them.  But  these 
husbandmen  do  not  remain  isolated  in  their  farms; 
they  possess  a  certain  intelligence  of  political  life,  and 
feel  the  want  of  a  national  existence.  Families  group 
together  to  form  cities,  and  cities  unite  in  a  common 
alliance  to  form  a  nation.  It  is  not  quite  the  same 
among  the  people  who  were  their  nearest  neighbours, 
almost  their  brothers — the  Sabines.  I  see  before  me 
their  mountains,  forming  a  sombre  line  on  the  horizon. 
In  that  country,  scarcely  accessible  to  people  from 
without,  there  dwelt  an  almost  savage  population  of 
husbandmen  and  shepherds,  resolutely  attached  to  their 
old  customs  and  their  ancient  beliefs,  and  resolved  not  to 
change  them.  With  regard  to  political  organisation,  they 
remained  faithful  to  patriarchal  rule.  Their  ideal  form 
of  government  was  family  government,  and  they  did  not, 
like  the  Latins,  get  so  far  as  to  establish  veritable  cities. 
''  Their  towns,"  says  Strabo,  "  are  scarcely  hamlets."  ^ 
So  Schwegler  thinks  that  in  the  union  of  the  two 
peoples  which  formed  the  Eoman  nation,  each  had  its 
share  and  played  its  part.  The  Latins  represent  that 
love  of  progress,  those  broad  views,  those  humanitarian 
instincts,  which  are  the  characteristic  and  the  honour 
of  the  Plebeians,  while  the  Sabines,  a  race  energetic  but 
narrow,  severe  to  hardness,  devout  even  to  superstition, 

1  Strabo,  V.  3. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  275 

brought  into  the  mixture  that  love  of  ancient  usages, 
that  respect  for  old  maxims,  that  spirit  of  resistance 
and  conservatism  which  animated  the  Patricians.  The 
struggle  between  these  two  opposite  tendencies  lasted, 
under  different  forms,  for  six  centuries,  and  explains  the 
whole  of  Eoman  history  down  to  the  time  of  the  Empire. 
Many  sages  and  patriots  who  were  witnesses  of  it  or 
its  victims  deplored  it  bitterly.  They  believed  and 
have  said  that  Eome  would  have  been  much  happier 
and  greater  could  one  of  these  two  elements  of  discord 
have  disappeared.  I  think  this  a  mistake,  and  that,  in 
combating,  they  restrained  and  tempered  each  other. 
Their  opposition  prevented  stability  from  becoming 
routine  and  reform  revolution.  It  may  have  rendered 
progress  slower,  but  it  made  it  more  sure ;  and,  thanks 
to  it,  everything  was  done  with  order  and  in  its  due  time. 
The  very  struggle  of  the  two  hostile  principles,  far  from 
being  a  cause  of  weakness  to  Eome,  is  perhaps  what 
gave  it  most  spring  and  motion.  In  these  daily 
assaults  of  which  the  Forum  was  the  scene,  characters 
took  that  energetic  temper,  that  ardour  of  generous 
rivalry,  that  mettle,  and  that  vigour,  which,  turned 
against  the  stranger,  conquered  the  world. 

But  we  have  wandered  very  far  from  our  subject. 
Eoman  history  is  full  of  attraction,  and  if  we  give  way 
to  the  reflections  suggested  by  the  sight  of  the  plains  of 
Latium  and  the  mountains  of  the  Sabina,  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  stop.  It  is  high  time  to  descend  from 
the  Borghese  tower  and  return  to  the  camp  of  ^^neas. 


276  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

IV. 

^NEAS  GOES  TO  SEE  EVANDER  AT  PALLANTEUM — THE  TRO- 
JAN CAMP  AT  OSTIA — IT  IS  BESIEGED  AND  ALMOST 
TAKEN  IN  THE  ABSENCE  OF  THE  CHIEF — BURNING  OF 
THE  SHIPS — EPISODE  OF  NISUS  AND  EURYALUS. 

The  god  of  the  Tiber,  in  his  prediction  which  kept 
us  so  long  just  now,  is  not  content  to  announce  to 
^neas  the  destinies  of  his  race,  and  give  him  explana- 
tions regarding  the  foundation  of  Lavinium  and  Alba. 
After  busying  himself  with  the  future,  he  thinks  of  the 
present,  and  teaches  him  how  to  escape  from  the 
dangers  that  threaten  him.  All  the  Italian  people 
unite  against  him,  and  he  cannot  oppose  them  without 
soldiers,  so  Tiber  tells  him  how  to  find  them.  He 
must  implore  help  from  the  enemies  of  the  Latins,  and 
he  will  be  enabled  to  resist  Turnus  by  the  help  of 
Evander  and  the  Etruscans.  In  order  to  procure  these 
precious  alliances,  and  obey  the  orders  of  the  gods,. 
^neas  leaves  his  camp,  embarks  on  the  Tiber,  and 
proceeds  to  visit  King  Evander  in  his  little  town  of 
Pallanteum.  This  is  an  ingenious  means  found  by 
Virgil  to  get  out  of  one  of  the  greatest  difficulties  of  his 
subject.  His  aim  is  to  sing  the  glory  of  Eome ;  and 
Rome,  at  the  time  in  which  he  places  his  epic,  does  not 
yet  exist;  she  only  figures  there  by  means  of  the 
predictions  unceasingly  made  of  her  greatness  and  her 
glory.  To  render  her  more  present  in  this  epic  of 
which  she  is  the  soul,  the  poet  has  had  the  happy  idea 
to  send  his  hero  to  the  very  spot  where  she  is  one  day 
to  rise.     If  he  cannot  see.  he  must  at  least  divine  and 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  277 

foreshadow  her.  On  this  predestined  soil  there  is  some- 
thing of  her  already.  At  the  foot  of  the  Aventine,  the 
worship  of  victorious  Hercules  is  celebrated,  Salian 
priests  sing  around  the  ara  maxima  ;  on  the  slope  of  the 
Palatine  the  sacred  grotto  of  the  Lupercal  is  shown,  and 
when  the  Arcadian  shepherds  pass  before  the  bushes 
which  cover  the  rocks  of  the  Palatine  they  think  they 
hear  Jove  shake  his  thunder,  and  take  to  flight,  terrified. 
Virgil's  Eighth  Book  is  one  of  those  written  by  him  with 
most  ardour  and  passion.  This  first  view  of  Eome 
before  her  birth  entranced  him,  and  the  picture  he  drew 
of  it  was  of  a  nature  to  enrapture  his  contemporaries, 
who  loved  to  contrast  this  town  of  marble  which 
Augustus  flattered  himself  with  having  built,  not  only 
with  the  brick  Pome  of  the  Eepublican  period,  but 
with  the  straw  houses  of  the  age  of  the  kings.  I  wish 
I  had  time  to  follow  ^neas  in  this  excursion,  in  which 
he  salutes  in  advance  the  city  destined  to  be  the  world's 
marvel  (rerum  pulcherrima  Boma) ;  and  I  should  like 
also  to  accompany  him  to  Coere,  where  the  enemies  of 
Mezentius  await  him  with  their  alliance.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  see  how  he  speaks  of  the  Etruscans,  and 
the  impression  which  this  strange  race  makes  upon 
him,  but  I  must  limit  myself,  for  the  journey  would 
take  us  too  far.  Let  us  be  resigned,  then,  to  allow  him 
to  start  alone,  and  not  leave  the  camp  where  he  has 
placed  his  soldiers. 

All  who  wrote  the  history  of  these  ancient  events 
have  spoken  of  the  camp  of  ^neas,  and  agree  in 
calling  it  Troy  {Troja,  castra  Trojana) ;  but  they  place 
it  at  different  spots.  Many  supposed  that  ^neas 
stopped  between  Lavinium  and  Ardea,  near  the  temple 


278     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

raised  to  Venus,  where  a  statue  of  the  goddess  was 
.shown,  said  to  have  been  brought  thither  by  himself.^ 

Virgil  decided  for  another  part  of  the  shore. 
Faithful  to  his  custom  of  connecting  the  present  with 
the  past,  he  chose  to  consecrate  his  beginnings  of  an 
important  town  by  a  great  memory,  and  placed  the 
camp  of  ^neas  at  the  very  place  where  King  Ancus 
Marcius  was  afterwards  to  found  Ostia.  We  have 
seen  the  Trojans  arrive  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  and 
penetrate  into  the  "  shady  bed  of  the  river."  After 
advancing  a  little  way  along  its  banks,  they  stop  and 
disembark.  It  is  there  that  recent  excavations  have 
brought  to  light  the  foundations  of  vast  magazines  that 
encroached  upon  the  Tiber,  and  still  contain  large 
corn  jars  in  which  the  food  of  the  Eoman  people  was 
placed  in  reserve.  Ostia  is  now  about  four  kilometres 
from  the  sea;  but  we  know  that  at  the  time  of  its 
prosperity  it  was  quite  close  to  it.  In  the  Octavius  of 
Minucius  Felix,  the  first  work  written  by  a  Christian 
in  Latin,  the  author  and  his  friends  leave  Ostia  one 
morninc^  for  a  walk  on  the  shore,  and  it  seems  from  the 


^  Another  reason  they  had  for  making  ^neas  come  to  this  spot 
"vras  that  the  sacred  river  Numicus  or  Numicius  was  generally  placed 
here.  Denys  of  Halicarnassus  and  Pliny  seem  indeed  to  say  that  it 
flows  near  Lavinium,  and  it  is  usually  identified  with  the  Rio  TortOy 
or  some  other  of  these  rivulets  found  between  Pratica  and  Ardea. 
But  Virgil  puts  it  quite  close  to  Ostia.  •  When  on  their  arrival  the 
Trojans  seek  to  iind  out  where  it  is  they  have  landed,  they  send  people 
to  explore  the  neighbourhood,  and  these  report  that  they  have  just 
seen  the  marshes  where  the  Numicius  rises  {Fontis  staqna  NiLmici), 
which  would  seem  to  point  to  a  rivulet  issuing  from  the  Stagno  di 
Levante  and  flowing  towards  the  sea.  However,  it  was  said  that  this 
rivulet  had  dried  up,  which  explains  the  discussion  as  to  its  position. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  279 

narrative  of  Miiiucius  that  they  only  have]^to  go  a  few 
steps.     They  soon  arrive  at  their  goal,  and  find  them- 
selves on  a  kind  of  carpet  of  sand,  which  the  tide  seems 
to  have  spread  at  their  feet  to  make  an  agreeable  walk. 
A  century  and  a  half  before,  when  Virgil  went  over  this 
shore,  it  must  have  been  in  nearly  the  same  state ;  and 
in  accordance  with  his  custom,  he  supposes  that  it  had  not 
changed  since  the  time  of  ^neas.   Wishing  to  do  for  Ostia 
what  he  had  done  for  Eome,  he  has  reverted  to  the  time 
when  cabins  of  straw  held  the  place  of  marble  palaces. 
His  fancy,  in  love  with  simplicity  and  fond  of  contrasts, 
has   delighted   to   place   the   poor  shelters  of  an  im- 
provised camp  where  he  saw  wide  streets  bordered  by 
porticoes  and  full  of  the  most  sumptuous  merchandise, 
and  to  assemble  a  few  frightened  soldiers  in  the  very 
places   animated  in  his  time   by   the    movement   and 
noise  of  business.     This  camp  of  ^neas  is  a  kind  of 
little  town,  imagined  by  the  poet  on  the  model  of  the 
castra  stativa  in  which  the  Roman  legions  were  wont  to 
retrench  themselves  when  they  had  a  rather  long  stay 
to  make.     The  boundary,  according  to  an  ancient  usage, 
is   traced   with   the   plough,  a  deep  ditch  is  dug  all 
around,  and  the  earth  drawn  from  it  serves  to  form  an 
entrenchment  furnished  with  battlements  and  loopholes. 
In  front,  like  advanced  sentinels,  rise  wooden  towers, 
joined  to  the   fort  by  drawbridges,  to   be  lowered  or 
raised  according  to   the   needs   of   the  defence.      The 
town    (as    Yirgil   calls   it)   is   only   provided    with    a 
rampart   on  the  left  side ;  the  right  being  built  upon 
the  river,  the  poet  supposes  that  it  does  not  want  pro- 
tecting.    This  circumstance  affords  him  the  cUnou^ment 
of  one  of  his  most  brilliant  episodes.     He  relates  that 


280  THE   COUNTRY    OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

Turnus,  pursuing  the  fugitive  Trojans,  enters  their 
camp  with  them,  unperceived.  The  fugitives'  first 
care  is  hurriedly  to  close  their  gates,  and  they  thus 
shut  within  their  walls  the  very  man  they  would  have 
avoided.  On  recognising  the  tuft  of  red  feathers  that 
waves  upon  his  head,  and  the  lightnings  flashed  by  his 
shield,  they  are  seized  with  unspeakable  terror.  Turnus 
chases  and  slays  them  "like  a  tiger  surrounded  by 
timid  cattle."  They  end,  however,  by  seeing  that  he  is 
alone ;  and  having  united,  they  gradually  force  him  to 
retire  from  the  combat.  Before  this  crowd,  every 
moment  increased  by  the  timid  who  are  taking  heart 
again,  he  withdraws  little  by  little  and  step  by  step, 
holding  them  all  at  bay,  but  exhausted  by  the  unequal 
contest.  "The  sweat  rolls  in  black  waves  over  his 
body.  He  can  no  longer  breathe,  and  his  pantings 
shake  his  breast."  Borne  back  at  length  against  the 
Tiber,  as  there  is  neither  retrenchment  nor  wall  on 
this  side,  he  flingjs  himself  into  the  river,  "  which  raises 
him  softly  on  its  waters,  and  gives  him  back  to  his 
companions  cleansed  from  the  soils  of  the  fight.'' 

This  combat,  which  takes  place  while  ^neas  is 
absent,  fills  the  whole  of  the  Ninth  Book  of  the  JSneid. 
In  the  course  of  it,  the  Trojans,  bereft  of  their  chief, 
are  very  badly  used  by  Turnus,  and  besieged  in  their 
camp,  which  is  on  the  point  of  being  taken.  Of  all 
this  struggle,  which  it  would  be  of  slight  interest  to 
study  in  detail,  I  only  give  two  episodes,  not  because 
they  are  finer  than  the  rest,  but  because  they  seem  to 
me  to  become  somewhat  clearer  when  read  upon  the  spot, 
and  because  they  fit  themselves  better  into  the  land- 
scape, as  it  were. 


OSTIA  AND   LAVINIUM.  281 

The  first  is  that  in  which  the  poet  tells  us  of  the 
metamorphosis  of  the  Trojan  vessels  into  sea-nymphs. 
When  ^neas  landed  on  Italian  soil,  his  first  care  was 
to  place  his  ships  in  safety.  He  could  not  think  of 
leaving  them  in  the  river.  The  famous  port  of  Ostia, 
before  the  works  of  Claudius  and  Trajan,  was  not  a 
port.  Strabo  tells  us  that  the  shoals  caused  by  the 
sand  carried  by  the  Tiber  did  not  allow  vessels  of  heavy 
tonnage  to  approach  the  coast.  "They  cast  their 
anchors  and  remained  at  large,  exposed  to  all  the 
roughness  of  the  open  sea.  Meanwhile,  light  craft 
came  to  take  their  merchandise  and  bring  them  other, 
so  that  they  left  without  having  entered  the  river."  ^ 
-^neas,  in  order  to  avoid  these  dangers  and  place  his 
vessels  in  safety  from  the  sands  and  the  waves,  has 
them  drawn  up  upon  the  shore.  This  custom,  already 
existent  in  the  time  of  Homer,  was  not  abandoned  in 
the  second  century  of  the  Empire. 

Minucius  Felix  tells  us  that  while  walking  about 
Ostia  (at  the  very  place  where  the  Trojan  fleet  must 
have  been)  he  met  with  "  ships  taken  out  of  the  water, 
and  resting  on  wooden  stays,  in  order  to  prevent  them 
from  being  soiled  by  the  mud."  ^  The  vessels  of 
^neas  were  placed  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Tiber,  in 
the  space  of  four  stadia  (720  metres)  w^hich  separated 
the  Trojan  camp  from  the  sea.  They  had  been  hidden 
as  well  as  possible,  and,  like  the  camp  itself,  they  were 
defended  by  a  sort  of  entrenchment  on  the  side  where 
the  river  did  not  protect  them.  But  they  did  not 
escape  Turnus.     Going   before  the  main  body  of  his 

1  Strabo,  V.  3,  5.  2  Octavius,  3. 


282     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  YIRGIL. 

soldiers,  who  did  not  march  fast  enough,  the  chief  of 
the  Eutuli,  with  a  few  chosen  horsemen,  turns  on  the 
Trojan  camp  "  like  a  famished  wolf  around  a  well- 
filled,  well-shut  sheep-fold,  when,  through  the  night, 
mid  wind  and  storm,  he  hears  the  lambs  bleat  peace- 
fully beneath  their  dams."^  While  looking  on  all 
sides  for  some  opening  through  which  to  strike  his  foes, 
who  will  not  come  out,  he  espies  the  vessels,  and 
prepares  to  hurl  blazing  torches  against  them.  But  at 
this  moment  Cybele,  mother  of  the  gods,  steps  in  and 
saves  them.  Since  they  were  built  with  trees  of  the 
sacred  forest  of  Ida,  she  will  not  have  them  perish  like 
ordinary  craft,  and  obtains  from  Jupiter  leave  to  change 
them  into  goddesses  of  the  sea.  She  has  only  to  say  a 
word.  "  At  once  the  vessels  break  the  bonds  that  held 
them,  and  like  plunging  dolphins  sink  in  the  abyss. 
Soon  after,  on  the  surface  of  the  waves,  as  many  youth- 
ful nymphs  were  seen  to  rise  as  prows  of  bronze  had 
been  along  the  shore."  ^ 

Naturally  this  miracle  does  not  please  Voltaire,  and 
we  must  believe  that  it  caused  some  surprise  even  in 
ancient  times,  since  the  poet  feels  it  necessary  to  defend 
it.  Like  the  authors  of  the  chansons  cle  geste,  who,  after 
relating  anything  incredible,  never  fail  to  state  that 
they  read  it  in  the  Latin  work  of  some  well-informed 
monk,  Virgil  invokes  tradition.  "  It  is  a  very  old 
story,"  he  tells  us,  "  but  its  fame  has  been  preserved 
throughout  the  ages."  ^  This  precaution  shows  us  that 
he  foresaw  some  objection.  He  well  felt  that  in  his 
work  the  tale  he  was  about  to  tell  bore  quite  a  new 

1  yEn.,  IX.  59.  -  Ibid.,  117.  ^  Ibid.,  79. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  283 

character.  In  Homer's  poems  and  in  his  own  the  gods 
very  frequently  intervene ;  but  for  the  most  part  it  is 
not  to  disarrange  the  regular  order  of  the  world,  and 
produce  effects  contrary  to  good  sense.  The  super- 
natural, as  they  understood  it,  is  usually  a  very  natural 
thing.  In  those  primitive  times  which  we  are  depict- 
ing, men  were  accustomed  to  attribute  all  that  happened 
to  them  to  a  divine  influence. 

When  they  watched  some  violence  of  the  elements, 
or  when  they  felt  some  furious  ardour  arise  in  their 
hearts,  they  were  tempted  to  think  that  the  divinity 
could  not  be  a  stranger  to  it.  "  Is  it  true,"  says  o"ne  of 
Virgil's  heroes,  "  that  the  gods  inspire  in  me  a  great 
design  ;  or  does  not  each  of  us  make  a  god  of  the 
passions  of  his  soul  ? "  ^  It  is  in  consonance  with  this 
idea  that  the  ancient  poets  so  often  represent  Mars, 
Minerva,  and  Apollo  going  about  the  field  of  battle,  and 
at  the  critical  moment  appearing  to  a  combatant  to 
stir  up  his  ardour  or  suggest  some  enterprise  to  him, 
and  it  almost  always  happens  that  they  only  advise 
him  what  should  have  occurred  spontaneously  to  his 
own  mind.  When  Virgil  shows  us  Alecto  inspiring  the 
Italians  with  anger  on  the  coming  of  ^neas,  we  cannot 
help  thinking  that  the  Italians  must  of  themselves  have 
felt  very  irritated  at  seeing  a  stranger  land  among  them, 
and  without  more  ado  come  to  settle  on  their  lands, 
under  pretext  that  the  gods  have  given  them  to  him. 
Elsewhere  he  shows  us  Juno,  Venus,  and  Cupid  plot- 
ting together  to  make  Dido  fall  in  love  with  ^]neas. 
Do  we  need  the  intervention  of  so  many  divinities  to 


^n.,  IX.  184. 


284     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

explain  to  us  that  a  woman,  young,  beautiful,  and  who 
has  loved  much,  one  day  takes  a  fancy  to  a  hero  who 
relaj^  his  misfortunes  and  his  adventures  to  her  in  so 
touching  a  manner  ?  We  are  not  surprised  that  JEneas, 
when  he  begins  to  love  Dido,  forgets  for  her  that  Italy 
which  the  Fates  promise  him ;  and  we  also  understand 
that  when  he  has  nothing  more  to  desire,  in  the  first 
weariness  of  sated  love,  he  begins  to  think  of  it  again. 
Was  it  absolutely  necessary  to  trouble  Mercury  in 
order  to  remind  him  of  it  ?  It  were  possible,  then,  in 
the  examples  I  have  just  given,  to  suppress  the  marvel- 
lous without  grave  damage  to  the  action;  for  it  is 
only  a  means  of  better  explaining  natural  incidents 
which,  strictly  speaking,  could  explain  themselves. 
But  the  legend  we  are  studying  has  not  quite  the  same 
character.  It  is  a  downright  miracle  altering  the  laws 
of  nature. 

It  was  imagined  to  amuse  the  mind  for  a  moment  by 
the  unexpectedness  and  strangeness  of  the  invention, 
and  is  indeed  a  wonder  of  fairyland,  foreshadowing 
Ovid's  Meta'morpJioses. 

Of  the  other  story  I  will  say  scarcely  anything,  for 
fear  of  not  saying  enough  ;  it  is  the  episode  of  Nisus  and 
Euryalus.  Virgil  has  put  all  his  soul  into  it,  which  does 
not  prevent  everything  in  it  from  being  exact  and  pre- 
cise, so  that  on  the  spot  the  least  details  can  be  followed 
and  understood.  In  a  purely  imaginative  narration  the 
poet  gives  us  the  complete  illusion  of  truth.  Here  is 
the  camp  of  ^neas  as  we  have  just  described  it, 
between  the  Tiber,  the  plain  of  Laurentum,  and  the 
sea.  We  first  assist  at  the  military  vigil  of  the  Trojans, 
in  face   of   a   threatening   enemy.     They   are   uneasy 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  285 

about  the  absence  of  their  chief,  and  fear  to  succumb 
on  the  morrow  beneath  the  attacks  of  Turnus.  Msus, 
who  guards  a  gate  with  Euryalus,  reveals  to  him  that 
he  has  formed  a  plan  to  cross  the  encampment  of  the 
Eutuli,  and  go  and  inform  ^neas  of  the  danger  which 
his  soldiers  are  exposed  to.  In  lines  impossible  to 
forget  Virgil  relates  the  conversation  of  the  two  friends 
and  their  noble  struggle,  a  dispute  between  tenderness' 
and  heroism,  in  which  heroism  finally  triumphs.  He 
then  takes  them  to  the  assembly  of  the  chiefs.  While 
the  soldiers  sleep,  the  chiefs  standing  in  their  midst, 
leaning  upon  their  long  lances,  seek  some  means  to  warn 
^neas,  wlien  the  two  friends  come  to  announce  that 
they  have  undertaken  the  enterprise.  Msus  knows 
the  way  that  must  be  followed  in  order  to  reach  him. 
Beneath  that  hill  which  he  points  out  to  the  right,  he  i& 
sure  to  find  a  road  that  in  a  few  hours  will  bring  him 
to  Pallanteum,  the  nearest  houses  of  which  he  has  seen 
from  afar  in  his  adventurous  hunting  excursions.^ 
Accompanied  by  the  good  wishes  of  lulus  and  the  Trojan 
chiefs,  they  start.  Here  our  topographical  knowledge 
enables  us  to  follow  them  step  by  step.  Virgil  tells  us 
"  they  left  by  the  gate  nearest  to  the  sea,"  and  we  are 
at  first  rather  surprised  at  this.  It  is  just  the  contrary 
road  to  the  one  they  might  have  been  expected  to  take,, 
since  by  following  this  direction  they  turn  their  backs 
on  Pallanteum.  Are  we  to  believe,  with  Bonstetten, 
that  the  course  of  the  Tiber  then  approached  the  large 
marsh  known  as  the  Stagno  di  Levante ;  that,  towards 


^  ^n.,  IX.  244.     Bonstetten  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  from 
Castel  Dccimo  the  houses  of  the  Roman  outskirts  are  plainly  seen. 


286  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AXD   VIRGIL. 

Eome  the  morass  and  the  river  joining,  formed,  as  it 
were,  a  boundary  to  the  camp  of  iEneas,  and  that  there 
was  no  issue  on  this  side  ?  Or  is  it  not  more  simple  to 
suppose  that  Nisus  and  Euryalus  chose  the  way  skirting 
the  sea,  because  it  was  least  defended  ?  Nisus,  in  fact, 
has  remarked  that  the  Eutuli,  who  have  passed  the 
night  in  playing  and  drinking,  do  not  keep  guard. 
Hardly  any  fires  shine  in  their  camp.  Plunged  in 
sleep  and  drunkenness,  some  are  stretched  on  the  grass, 
while  others  are  more  softly  couched  on  heaped-up 
carpets ;  all  are  sleeping  with  a  will.  So  the  two 
friends  easily  effect  a  great  slaughter.  They  even  tarry 
longer  than  tliey  should  over  this  easy  victory,  and, 
tempted  by  the  rich  booty  they  have  won,  lose  time  in 
carrying  it  off.  Poor  Euryalus,  quite  a  youth,  with  the 
vanity  of  his  age,  cannot  refrain  from  covering  himself 
with  brilliant  arms,  which,  struck  by  a  moonbeam,  will 
presently  betray  him  and  cause  his  death.  They  at 
last  perceive  that  day  approaches,  that  they  have  got  to 
the  extremity  of  the  Eutuli  camp,  and  that  they  must 
hasten  to  leave  it. 

They  now  change  the  direction  of  their  way.  The 
poet  has  told  us  that  at  starting  they  found  two  roads 
before  them :  one  doubtless  leading  straight  to  the  sea, 
the  other  turning  to  the  left,  skirting  the  shore,  and 
holding  the  place  of  the  ^i^-  Severiana,  constructed  by 
Severus,  from  Ostia  to  Terracina.  As  long  as  they 
were  traversing  the  camp  of  Turnus,  Nisus  and  Eury- 
alus followed  the  latter  road.  On  leaving  it,  they  turn 
to  the  left,  their  intention  doubtless  being  to  take  the 
end  of  the  Stagno  di  Levante,  and  thence  proceed  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  city  of  Evander.     In  order  now  to 


OSTIA    AND   LAVINIUM.  287 

go  from  that  spot  to  Eome,  we  should  have  to  make 
i\[alafede  or  Castel  Decimo  by  some  cross-road,  and 
take  the  Via  Ostiensis  or  the  Via  Laurentina,  which 
would  quickly  bring  us  there.  So  we  can  very  clearly 
picture  to  ourselves  where  the  unfortunate  youths  were 
when  the  Volscians,  coming  from  Laurentum  to  bring 
Turnus  part  of  his  troops,  perceived  them.  They  must 
have  been  close  to  that  fine  park  of  Castel  Fusano  one 
never  fails  to  go  and  see  when  visiting  Ostia,  at  the  spot 
where  the  Selva  Laurentina  begins.  Virgil  thus  de- 
scribes the  forest  they  tried  to  cross : 

"  Silvafuit  late  dumis.  atque  illice  nigra. 
Horrida,  quam  densi  complebant  undique  sentes  ; 
Rara  'per  occultos  lucfhat  semita  calles.^'  ^ 

Bonstetten  bids  us  remark  that  this  description  has 
not  ceased  to  be  true.  Now,  as  in  the  time  of  iEneas, 
the  wliole  of  this  region  abounds  in  impenetrable, 
thickets  where  bushes  and  brambles  interlace,  and  it 
is  impossible  not  to  lose  one's  way.  I  remember  a  little 
wood  between  Castel  Fusano  and  Tor  Paterno  which  I 
was  so  imprudent  as  to  enter,  and  from  which  I  only 
escaped  with  much  difficulty  and  many  scratches,  very 
far  from  tlie  place  whither  I  desired  to  go.  Evidently, 
had  Volscians  pursued  me  with  300  horsemen,  I  should 
not  have  saved  myself.  Yet  Nisus  manages  to  get  off. 
The  poet,  bent  on  being  precise  above  all  things,  tells 
us  he  had  got  to  that  spot  called  later  "  the  Alban  field,"  ^ 

'  JSn.,  IX.  381. 

^  I  have  some  difficulty  in  understanding  how  this  passage  of  the 
yEneid  could  have  given  interpreters  so  much  trouble.  It  is  clear 
that  neither  the  town  founded  by  Ascanius,  nor,  as  Heyne  supposes, 
the  lake  situated  at  the  foot  of  Moant  Albano,  is  here  in  question. 


288  THE   COUNTKY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIEGIL. 

when  he  saw  that  he  was  alone.  Euryahis,  less 
skilful  and  resolute,  and  encumbered  by  the  spoil  with 
which  he  had  loaded  himself,  had  lingered  on  the  road 
Nisus  does  not  waver ;  he  plunges  into  the  forest,  and 
returns  to  die  with  his  friend. 

I  will  not  be  so  imprudent  as  to  relate  their  death  when 
Virgil  has  so  ably  done  so.  I  prefer  to  leave  the  reader 
the  pleasure  of  going  over  the  entire  episode  again  in  the 
jEneid.  This  pleasure  will  be  complete  if  he  have  the 
good  fortune  to  read  this  admirable  narrative  at  Castel 
Fusano  itself — that  is  to  say,  in  the  place  that  inspired 
it.  I  can  imagine  none  in  the  world  where  the  soul 
could  better  yield  itself  up  to  this  grand  poetry.  In 
our  bustling  towns  it  is  very  difficult  to  abstract  one- 
self from  the  present ;  it  seizes  on  us,  and  holds  us  fast 
on  every  side.  At  Castel  Fusano  nothing  draws  us- 
away  from  the  memories  of  antiquity.  In  order  ta 
belong  quite  entirely  to  Yirgil,  I  would  rather  not  have 
before  my  eyes  even  the  stern  palace  of  the  Chigi,  as 
much  like  a  fortress  as  a  country  house.  I  would 
place  myself  opposite  the  avenue  paved  with  the  slabs- 
of  the  Via  Severiana,  and  leading  to  the  sea,  beneath 
the  shade  of  those  great  parasol  pines,  the  most  beauti- 
ful found  in  the  Eoman  Campagna.  "  This  shade,'*" 
says  Bonstetten  very  happily,  "  is  like  no  other.     You 


These  are  much  too  far  from  the  shore,  and  it  would  have  taken 
Nisus  a  long  day's  journey  to  go  and  return,  whereas  he  must  have 
been  much  less  than  an  hour  on  his  way.  Virgil  means  some  spot  on 
the  territory  of  Laurentum  to  which,  for  reasons  unknown  to  us,  had 
been  named  loci  Alhani,  and  was  so  called  in  his  day.  The  care  he- 
takes  to  point  it  out  well  shows  the  desire  he  had  to  be  precise,  and 
connect  the  scene  with  a  definite  spot. 


OSTIA   AND   LAVINIUM.  289 

walk  between  the  gigantic  trunks  of  these  trees  as 
between  columns,  and  although  in  a  wood  you  see 
the  sky  and  the  horizon  all  round.  The  eye  reposes 
gently,  as  if  under  a  gauze  veil,  in  a  light  having 
neither  the  darkness  of  shadow  nor  the  brightness  of 
the  sun.  In  order  to  be  aware  of  the  light  parasol 
spread  out  in  the  air  between  the  sky  and  earth,  you 
must  raise  your  head."  Certainly,  as  I  have  already 
said,  Virgil's  verses  may  be  understood  and  enjoyed 
everywhere;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  in  this  solitude 
and  this  great  silence,  in  the  midst  of  this  fine  park 
surrounded  by  a  desert,  and  among  all  these  relics  of 
the  hoary  past  one  finds  in  them  one  charm  more. 
Perhaps,  too,  seeing  how  exactly  places  have  been 
described  and  scenes  narrated,  we  better  understand 
how  it  is  that  a  work  of  imagination,  a  creation  of  the 
poet,  should  have  become  for  us  more  living  and  more 
true  than  many  a  real  story,  and  how  the  prediction  of 
Virgil  was  accomplished,  who  announced  to  his  person- 
ages that  nothing  could  efface  their  names  from  the 
memories  of  men : 

"  Fortunati  amho,  si  quid  mea  carmina  possunt  I 
Nulla  dies  unquam  memori  vos  eximet  cevo."  ^ 


1  ^n.,  IX.  466. 


290  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

lY. 
LAUEENTUM. 
I. 

TENTH  BOOK  OF  THE  ^NEID — ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  GODS — 
RETURN  OF  ^NEAS — WAR  IN  VIRGIL's  POEM — HIS 
PORTRAYAL  OF  THE  DIFFERENT  ITALIC  RACES — WHY 
HE  DID  NOT  PAINT  THEM  MORE  DISTINCTLY. 

At  the  end  of  the  Ninth  Book  of  the  uEneid,  the 
Trojans  are  besieged  in  their  camp  during  the  absence 
of  their  chief.  The  attempts  made  by  them  to  warn 
him  have  failed ;  they  have  lost  their  bravest  soldiers, 
and  their  affairs  seem  desperate ;  but  fortune  is  about 
to  come  back  to  them  with  the  return  of  ^neas,  and 
thenceforth  their  success  will  continue  to  grow  until 
the  end  of  the  poem.  We  have  arrived,  then,  at  one  of 
those  decisive  moments  when  events  are  about  to  take 
a  new  turn.  So  Virgil  abruptly  breaks  off  his  narrative, 
and  transports  us  from  the  earth  to  the  sky,  in  order  to 
assist  at  an  assembly  of  the  gods. 

It  is  a  very  brilliant  episode,  and  very  carefully  worked 
out,  which  is  the  more  remarkable  from  its  being  the 
only  one  of  the  kind  in  the  JEneid,  If  Virgil  did  not 
imitate  Homer,  who  so  often  represents  the  gods 
assembled  and  debating  together,  it  is  doubtless  because 
he  felt  some  embarrassment  as  to  doing  so.  It  is  in 
such  scenes  that  the  Homeric  gods  most  willingly  give 
way  to  all  the  violence  of  their  humours ;  and  this 
violence  is  little  in  keeping  with  the  idea  formed  by  a 
more  enlightened  age  of  divine  majesty.     Virgil,  while 


LAURENTUM.  291 

on  the  whole  retaining  the  old  divinities,  aimed  at 
making  them  more  grave  and  decent,  and  this  attempt 
was  attended  with  some  dangers.  We  can  only  accept 
the  Homeric  gods  by  allowing  our  imagination  to  go 
back  to  the  age  of  Homer.  In  order  that  the  simplicity 
of  certain  details  may  not  wound,  it  must  abandon 
itself  entirely  to  the  past,  and  believe  itself  to  live 
therein ;  but  when  we  imprudently  ask  their  acceptance 
in  connection  with  the  present  time,  the  imagination  at 
once  becomes  more  fastidious,  and,  the  illusion  once 
dissipated,  contrasts  irritate,  and  the  corrections  we 
try  to  apply  to  the  original  figure,  with  the  new 
features  we  add,  only  serve  to  cast  the  strangeness 
of  the  rest  into  higher  relief.  In  the  assembly  of  the 
gods  in  the  Tenth  Book,  although  Jupiter  has  become 
more  majestic  and  dignified,  we  are  less  inclined  to 
congratulate  him  on  the  progress  he  has  perhaps  made 
than  struck  by  the  extent  to  which  he  falls  short  of 
the  divine  idea.  Brought  into  a  less  unsophisticated 
medium,  we  find  that  the  speeches  of  Venus  and  Juno 
contain  outbursts  of  language,  subtleties  of  reasoning, 
and  a  whole  rhetorical  mechanism  which  seems  to  us 
very  much  out  of  place  in  Olympus.  We  are  above  all 
displeased  to  see  that  all  this  discussion  leads  to  nothing. 
Jupiter,  who  begins  by  appearing  very  angry,  and  who 
seems  to  say  that  he  is  about  to  form  the  most  serious 
resolves,  ends  by  declaring,  amid  thunder  and  lightning 
and  invoking  the  Styx  to  witness  his  words,  that  he 
will  do  nothing  at  all,  and  that  he  lets  events  take  their 
course  {Fata  viam  invenient)}     It  was  not  worth  while 

1  ^n.,  X.  113. 


292  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

to  call  together  the  whole  of  the  celestial  body  for  so 
little.  This  celebrated  scene,  then,  which  opens  the 
Tenth  Book  in  so  brilliant  a  manner,  seems  to  me  to 
have  only  one  result ;  it  indicates  with  great  solemnity 
that  we  have  got  to  one  of  the  chief  crises  of  the 
action.^ 

It  is,  in  fact,  directly  after  the  assembly  of  the  gods 
that  fortune  changes.  Very  early  in  the  morning, 
Turnus,  hoping  to  carry  the  Trojan  camp  before  succour 
arrives,  resumes  the  attack.  The  unfortunate  soldiers, 
who  were  so  hardly  treated  the  day  before,  and  who 
had  little  hope  of  escape,  "  look  sadly  down  from  the 
towers,  and  their  thinned  ranks  can  scarcely  man  the 
ramparts."  ^  Turnus  redoubles  his  efforts,  attacks  all 
the  gates  at  once,  throws  flaming  torches  on  the  towers, 
and  thinks  himself  sure  of  success,  when  suddenly  a 
cry  rings  out  upon  the  walls,  a  cry  of  joy  and  deliver- 
ance. It  is  ^neas  who  is  coming  with  the  thirty 
vessels  of  the  Etruscans.  The  sun,  rising  at  this 
moment  above  the  Alban  mountains,  strikes  his  shield, 
and  the  flashes  are  easily  seen  from  the  Trojan  camp, 
situated,  as  we  know,  four  stadia  from  the  sea. 

Kead  in  the  poem,  the   events  that   follow   appear 


1  The  only  positive  result  of  this  assembly  of  Olympus  is  that 
Jupiter,  in  his  opening  speech,  prohibits  all  the  gods  from  meddling  in 
the  quarrel  of  the  Trojans  and  the  Latins,  and  undertakes  in  his  last 
not  to  meddle  in  it  himself.  In  the  upshot,  neither  the  gods  nor 
Jupiter  abstain  from  taking  part  in  the  fight.  I  am  therefore  greatly 
tempted  to  believe  that  Virgil  composed  this  brilliant  digression 
separately,  and  added  it,  so  that  he  had  no  time  to  harmonise  it  well 
viith.  the  rest. 

2  ^n.,  X.  121. 


LAURENTUM.  293 

somewhat  confused,  but  they  develop  themselves,  on 
the  contrary,  with  great  clearness  when  studied  upon 
the  spot,  ^neas  had  caused  the  cavalry  given  him  by 
Evander,  and  reinforced  by  that  of  Tarchon,  to  take  the 
land  route,  while  he  himself  brought  the  Etruscan  fleet 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  The  road  to  be  followed  by 
the  cavalry  and  the  spot  where  it  was  to  aw^ait  him 
were  settled  in  advance.  All  has  been  carried  out 
exactly,  and  the  cavalry  has  passed  the  Tiber  some- 
where between  the  Trojan  camp  and  the  Pallanteum. 
In  order  to  escape  Turnus,  who  keeps  upon  his  guard, 
and  wishes,  above  all,  to  prevent  help  from  being 
brought  to  the  besieged,  it  has  been  obliged  to  go  a 
rather  long  way  round,  and  has  perhaps  even  skirted 
the  Stagno  di  Levante.  The  poet  tells  us  nothing  of  all 
these  movements;  but  lets  each  imagine  them  according 
to  his  fancy.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  cavalry  has 
also  arrived  quite  close  to  the  sea,  since  Pallas, 
Evander's  son,  who  has  come  in  the  ship  of  ^Eneas, 
manages  to  join  it  and  put  himself  at  its  head.  This, 
then,  is  the  situation  of  the  combatants  when  Turnus, 
still  besieging  the  Trojans,  without  seeming  to  suspect 
what  threatens  him,  hears  their  cry  of  joy 
and  the  distant  salutation  they  address  to  their  chief. 
Then  he,  too,  turns  to  the  ocean,  and  sees  the  Etruscan 
fleet  nearing  the  shore.  Hereupon,  leaving  a  few  soldiers 
around  the  walls,  he  rushes  to  make  a  furious  attack  on 
the  newcomers.  The  combat  goes  on  in  two  places 
at  once — towards  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  where  ^neas 
has  just  disembarked  with  the  Etruscans,  and  a  little 
farther  on,  towards  Castel  Fusano,  where  Evander's 
cavalry,  commanded  by  Pallas,  find  themselves  for  a 


294     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

moment  very  much  embarrassed  among  trunks  of  trees, 
and  large  stones  rolled  down  by  the  waters  of  a  torrent.^ 
After  a  bloody  struggle,  the  Latins  give  way,  Turnus 
being  withdrawn  from  the  combat  by  a  stratagem  of  his 
sister.  The  Trojan  youth  leave  the  camp  where  they 
were  shut  up,  and  all  the  troops  of  JEneas  unite 
under  his  hand. 

This  Book  and  the  two  following,  like  the  one  pre- 
ceding them,  are  almost  entirely  taken  up  with 
descriptions  of  battle.  A  certain  monotony  results, 
which  explains  the  severe  judgment  sometimes  passed 
against  the  end  of  the  JEJneid.  It  was  unfortunately 
a  necessity  of  the  subject  chosen  by  Yirgil,  and  he 
could  not  escape  it.  Since  ^neas  must  conquer  by 
arms  the  country  where  he  is  to  settle,  of  course  the 
poet  had  to  sing  of  war.  He  did  not  love  it,  however, 
and  always  remembered  that  it  had  troubled  his  youth. 
At  twenty-six  years  of  age,  when  he  was  given  up  to 
the  pleasures  of  country  life  and  the  love  of  the  Muses, 
he  had  seen  with  terror  the  undisciplined  legions  of 
Antony  and  Octavius  pass,  ravaging  all  upon  their  way. 
They  returned  soon  afterwards,  made  more  insolent 
by  victory,  and  claiming  from  their  chiefs  the  rewards 
they  had  been  promised,  and  he  had  nearly  lost  his 
life  in  defending  his  little  field  from  them.     We  must 

^  This  seems  to  Bonstetten  very  improbable.  "The  Tiber,"  he 
says,  "never  rolled  rocks."  1  add  that  the  Arcadian  horsemen  do 
not  fight  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  but  a  little  farther  on.  The 
mountains  are  very  far  from  the  spot  where  they  are  placed,  and  the 
water  flowing  from  them  Avould  fall  into  the  Stagno  di  Levante,  which 
bars  the  way.  So  it  is  very  difficult  to  understand  what  Virgil  means 
in  this  passage. 


LAURENTUM.  295 

not  be  astonished  that  he  should  have  retained  a  sort 
of  horror  of  war.  Peace  was  his  ideal  and  his  dream. 
He  loved  to  foresee  it  in  the  future,  and. hailed  in  advance 
a  happy  time  when  differences  would  no  longer  be 
settled  by  arms,  when  all  old  quarrels  would  be  for- 
gotten, and  when  concord  and  justice  would  at  length 
reign  over  the  world. 

"  Aspera  turn  positis  mitescent  scecula  hellis. 
Cana  Fides  et   Vesta,  Remo  cum  frate  Quirinus 
Jura  dahunt,"^ 

and  among  the  reasons  he  had  to  love  Augustus — the 
strongest,  certainly — was  his  having  closed  the  Temple 
of  Janus  and  bidden  the  Empire  be  at  peace.  At  the  very 
moment  when  forced  by  the  necessity  of  his  subject  to 
tell  of  battles,  he  never  ceases  to  load  war  with  the 
hardest  epithets  (horrida,  insana  hella ;  laci^imabile 
helium).  He  puts  himself  on  the  side  of  the  mothers 
who  curse  it,  and,  in  a  deathless  line,  shows  them  at 
the  first  noise  of  battle  pressing  their  children  to  their 
breasts  : 

"  Et  pavidce  maires  pressere  ad  p)ectore  natos"  ^ 

I^or  could  he  help  communicating  this  feeling  of  his 
to  his  hero.  ^Eneas  makes  war  as  Virgil  sings  it — very 
much  in  spite  of  himself. 

It  may  indeed  be  said  that  Homer  sometimes  talks 
like  Virgil.  It  also  happens  to  him  to  be  deeply 
touched  by  the  ills  inflicted  on  men  by  war.  When  a 
young  man  dies,  he  pities  him  "  for  sleeping  a  brazen 
sleep  far  from  his  wife,  of  whom  he  has  received  but 

1  ^n.,  I.  291.  2^?«.,  YII.  518. 


296  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

few  caresses."^  He  has  words  full  of  melancholy  on 
the  fate  of  poor  mortals  carried  off,  like  the  leaves  of 
trees,^  but  it  is  only  a  flash.  Once  plunged  into  the 
scrimmage,  he  is  seized  with  the  intoxication  of  combat. 
He  triumphs  with  the  victor,  he  strikes  the  vanquished 
without  ruth,  he  is  full  of  violent  insults  and  cruel 
ironies,  and  it  seems  natural  to  him  for  a  warrior  to 
threaten  his  enemies  "  to  eat  their  quivering  flesh,  to 
spill  their  brains  like  wine,  and  to  reach  the  infant 
even  in  its  mother's  womb."  ^  He  finds  no  greater 
happiness  for  Jupiter  than  "  to  sit  apart  from  the 
other  gods  and  rejoice  in  his  glory,  while  he  watches 
the  glint  of  the  bronze  and  the  warriors  who  slay  and 
are  slain."  ^  How  strange  is  the  nature  of  the  poet !  He 
understands  everything,  and  everything  enchants  him ! 
He  describes  contrary  sights  with  a  like  pleasure,  feels 
opposed  sentiments  with  the  same  force,  and  puts 
himself  equally  into  all  that  he  does  without  showing  a 
marked  preference  for  anything.  This  is  doubtless  one 
of  the  reasons  which  have  caused  his  existence  to  be 
doubted,  although  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  imagine  a 
work  without  an  author.  A  man's  personality  is  shown 
by  the  qualities  which  dominate  him,  and  it  is  usually 
the  absence  of  some  amon!][  them  that  throws  the  others 
into  relief.  So  Homer,  who  seems  to  have  all  in  the 
same  degree,  appears  to  us  less  living  and  less  real 
than  Virgil,  whose  character  is  drawn  and  defined  as 
much  by  what  is  lacking  in  him  as  by  what  he  possesses. 
It  must  be  owned  that  the  incomparable  gentleness  of 


1  Iliad,  Xr.  240.  -Ibid.,  VI.  ]47. 

^Ibid.,  XX.  346  ;  VI.  9.  ^Ibid.,  XI.  75. 


LAURENTUM.  297 

soul,  which  is  its  chief  feature,  little  predisposed  him 
to  be  the  bard  of  battles.  He  has  done  his  best  to 
imitate  his  great  predecessor;  he,  too,  represents  in- 
solent, implacable  warriors,  cutting  off  arms  and  legs, 
insulting  the  enemy  before  fighting  him,  jeering  at  him 
when  vanquished,  and  treading  upon  him  when  he  is 
dead.  But  do  what  he  will,  his  heart  is  not  in  all  these 
horrors,  and  we  always  feel  that  the  gentle  poet 
has  to  do  himself  a  violence  when  he  must  be  cruel. 
Whatever  talent  he  exhibits  in  these  descriptions,  he 
is  no  longer  quite  himself  in  them,  and  they  give  us 
little  pleasure. 

Yet  it  seems  there  was  a  means  of  introducing  a 
little  variety  into  the  accounts  of  these  combats.  This 
was  to  profit  by  the  diversities  existing  among  the 
Italic  races  before  Eome  united  them  under  her 
dominion,  and  describe  each  of  them  with  its  peculiar 
manners  and  distinguishing  features.  He  has  exactly 
tried  to  do  so,  and  this  effort  deserves  the  more  to  be 
remarked,  because  it  was  an  innovation.  In  Homer, 
the  Greeks  nowise  differ  from  the  Trojans,  and  exactly 
resemble  each  other.  The  famous  cataloij^ue  of  the 
Second  Book  of  the  Iliad  contains  scarcely  anything 
but  proper  names  and  a  few  general  epithets.  This 
long  enumeration  of  nations  that  took  part  in  the 
Trojan  War  is,  in  itself,  of  but  small  interest.^  What 
gives  it  its  importance  is  that  later  on  Greek  cities 
considered  it  a  title  of  nobility  to  figure  there.  But 
no    difference    appears    between    them.      Virgil,   too, 


1  See  the  enumeration  of  the  Italian  warriors  in  the  Seventh  Book, 
ine  647  to  the  end. 


298  THE  COUNTRY   OF   HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

when  he  placed  at  the  end  of  the  Seventh  Book  of 
the  ^neid  a  list  of  the  Italic  peoples  allied  to  Turnus, 
chiefly  desired  to  glorify  their  past,  and  give  them  an 
antiquity  that  would  do  them  honour ;  but  he  does  not 
content  himself  with  drily  enumerating  them,  he  adds 
to  their  names  some  mention  of  their  histories,  curious 
particulars  concerning  their  usages,  with  descriptions 
of  their  costumes  and  arms.  He  shows  us,  for  example, 
the  Volsci,  the  Hernici,  and  the  people  of  Prseneste  and 
Anagnia,  who  wear  a  wolf-skin  upon  their  heads,  and 
who  march  to  battle  with  one  foot  bare  and  the 
other  with  a  .leather  covering;  the  Falisci  and  the 
mountaineers  of  Soracte,  who  advance  singing  the 
praises  of  King  Messapus,  the  horse-tamer ;  the  Marsi, 
whose  chief  is  a  priest  skilled  in  the  art  of  charming 
serpents ;  the  Osci,  the  Aurunci,  and  the  Sidicii,  armed 
with  a  short  javelin  which  they  launch  by  means  of  a 
strap,  and  with  a  curved  sword ;  the  inhabitants  of 
Caprse,  of  Abella,  and  of  the  banks  of  Sarnus,  wearing 
cork  helmets  and  carrying  long  lances  which  they  use 
in  the  Teutonic  manner.  All  these  details  of  pictur- 
esque history,  not  yet  hackneyed,  must  have  occasioned 
the  contemporaries  of  Virgil  the  liveliest  pleasure,  and, 
indeed,  he  was  considered  as  a  great  archaeologist  and 
antiquary  ;  but,  in  our  days,  we  have  become  rdore  exact- 
ing. We  have  been  spoilt  by  pictures  of  this  kind 
being  heaped  upon  us,  and  never  have  enough  of  them. 
Many,  instead  of  being  thankful  to  him  for  what  he  has 
done,  are  tempted  to  find  that  he  stopped  too  soon. 
It  appears  to  them  that  he  has  not  painted  the  various 
Italic  nations  in  strokes  sufficiently  marked  and 
distinct,   and  they   especially   resent    his   not   having 


LAUKENTUM.  299 

made  more  of  the  Etruscans,  of  whom  he  speaks  still 
less  than  of  the  Latins.  If  we  except  a  word  he 
says  in  passing  about  their  taste  for  gaudy  costumes 
and  glittering  arms,  he  indeed  only  emphasizes  one 
side  of  their  character — their  passion  for  good  cheer 
and  women.  In  the  midst  of  a  battle,  their  chief 
Tarchon,  who  sees  them  fleeing  before  Camillus,  re- 
proaches them  "with  loving  only  to  sit  at  a  well- 
furnished  table  beside  a  full  cup,  and  with  only 
having  courage  for  Venus  and  her  nocturnal  combats."  ^ 
These  are  vivid  strokes,  it  is  true,  but  they  would  not 
have  sufficed  a  modern  poet.  He  would  have  given 
greater  relief  and  a  more  original  attitude  to  this 
strange  people,  of  whom  an  ancient  author  already  said 
that  in  its  language  and  mode  of  life  it  resembled  no 
other  nation  in  the  world.'-^  Virgil  did  not  choose  to 
do  so,  and  for  this  he  doubtless  had  some  reason.  The 
writers  of  antiquity,  historians  as  well  as  poets,  were 
above  all  artists,  and  their  first  care  was  the  unity  of 
their  works.  They  did  not  treat  the  various  parts 
irrelatively,  but  held  that  each  of  them  should  add 
to  the  general  effect.  Our  authors  have  not  exactly 
the  same  cares.  In  the  romance  of  Salaminho,  where 
Flaubert  seems  to  have  undertaken  to  remake  with 
realistic  treatment  the  prose  epic  of  Chateaubriand,  he 
is  brought,  like  Virgil,  to  enumerate  the  different 
peoples  who  form  the  army  of  Carthaginian  mercenaries. 
This  method  is  very  simple.  He  merely  gathers  from 
everywhere,  without  choosing,  all  the  archa3ological 
curiosities  he  can  find,  to  dress  up  his  characters  in. 


"^  JEn.y  XI.  735.  "Denys  of  Halicarnassus,  I. 


30. 


300  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

He  describes  successively  "the  Greek  with  his  slim 
waist,  the  Egyptian  with  his  high  shoulders,  the  big- 
calved  Cantabrian,  the  Libyans  daubed  with  vermilion 
and  looking  like  coral  statues,  the  Cappadocian  bow- 
men, who  with  the  juice  of  plants  paint  great  flowers 
on  thin  bodies,"  etc.  Each  of  these  traits  may  be 
striking  in  itself,  but  the  whole  forms  the  most  incon- 
gruous and  bizarre  picture  possible  to  imagine.  It  is  not 
an  army,  or  even  a  crowd ;  it  is  a  masquerade.  It  is 
hard  to  understand  how  men,  whom  we  know  to  have 
differed  so  utterly  from  each  other,  could  have  been 
brought  to  combine  in  common  action,  to  become  the 
instrument  of  a  single  w;ill,  and,  under  Hannibal's 
leadership,  to  bring  about  the  destruction  of  the  Eoman 
legions.  In  his  striving  after  absolute  accuracy  of 
detail,  Flaubert  seems  to  have  failed  to  impress  us  with 
an  idea  of  the  truth  of  the  whole  ;  he  gives  us  a  series  of 
genre  pictures  instead  of  composing  a  great  historical 
masterpiece,  as  was  his  original  intention.  It  is  a 
serious  fault ;  and  when  we  come  to  see  the  bad  effects 
produced  in  his  work  by  over-colouring,  I  think  we 
shall  be  less  tempted  to  reproach  Virgil  with  the 
sobriety  of  his  descriptions. 

The  battles  in  the  jEneicl  are  treated  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  battles  in  the  Iliad :  they  are  given  their 
proper  value.  Virgil,  like  Homer,  alternates  general 
meUcs  with  hand-to-hand  fights;  and  it  is  not  to  be 
denied  that  after  a  time  this  proceeding  becomes  some- 
what monotonous.  His  description  of  the  single 
encounters  is  sometimes  very  fine.  We  take  great 
pleasure,  for  example,  in  carefully  studying  the  struggle 
between  Turnus  and  Pallas,  between  ^Eneas  and  Lausus 


LAURENTUM.  301 

and  Mazentius  ;  but  we  take  less  interest  in  the  accounts 
of  the  general  skirmishes ;  that  is  to  say,  in  descrip- 
tions of  warriors  wha.slay  and  are  slain,  without  always 
being  able  to  make  out  to  which  side  they  belong : 

"  Ccedicus  Alcathoum  obtruncate  Sacrator  Hydaspem. 
Partheniumque  Rapo." 

On  this  account  I  spare  the  reader  all  the  details  of  the 
battles  which  were  fought  around  the  Trojan  camp. 
It  will  be  enough  for  him  to  know  that,  at  the  end  of 
the  Tenth  Book,  the  Eutuli  are  completely  vanquished 
and  pursued  by  ^neas  as  far  as  Laurentum,  whither 
we  are  about  to  follow  him. 


II. 


LAURENTUM — HOW  THE  OLD  TOWN  DISAPPEARED — WHERE 

COULD    IT    HAVE    BEEN    SITUATED  ?  —  CANAL    OF   THE 

STAGNO    DI  LEVANTE—TW&  SELVA   LAURENTINA 

'  — THE      BOARS     OF     LAURENTUM — ASPECT     OF     THE 

SHORE — PLINY'S  VILLA. 

This  is  not  too  easy  an  undertaking,  for  nothing 
remains  of  Laurentum.  It  was  said  that  the  ancient 
town  built  by  Faunus,  where  King  Latinus  dwelt  with 
Amata  his  wife  and  his  daughter  Lavinia  at  the  time 
when  ^neas  set  foot  in  Italy,  was  later  on  abandoned 
for  Lavinium,  as  Lavinium  was  for  Alba,  and  Alba 
for  Eome.  It  continued,  however,  to  live  on  obscurely, 
while  Eome  was  accomplishing  her  great  destiny, 
although  so  well   forgotten,  that   in  565,  during  the 


302  THE   COUNTRY   OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

ferioc  Latinm,  they  forgot  to  apportion  it  part  of  the 
victims,  as  was  customary  for  all  the  members  of  the 
confederation.  Happily  the  gods  remembered  the 
town,  showing  their  displeasure  by  numerous  prodigies, 
and  the  sacrifice  was  recommenced.^  It  certainly 
deserved  greater  consideration  on  the  part  of  the 
Eomans,  for  it  had  remained  faithful  to  them  at 
a  serious  crisis,  when  the  Latin  League  took  up 
arms  against  them,  and  they  were  deserted  even  by 
Lavinium.2  The  war  over,  it  had  been  decided  that,  in 
recognition  of  this  fidelity,  the  treaty  between  Eome 
and  Laurentum  should  be  renewed  year  by  year,  on  a 
fixed  day.  We  may  well  believe  that  in  this  country, 
where  nothing  was  lost,  some  vestige  of  the  ancient 
ceremony  would  still  remain  in  the  time  of  the 
Emperor  Claudius.  At  Pompeii  an  inscription  of  that 
period  has  been  found,  in  which  a  certain  Turranius 
a  vain  and  pedantic  personage,  who  seems  to  have  been 
very  solicitous  of  religious  dignities,  tells  us  that  he 
has  been  appointed  by  the  inhabitants  of  Laurentum 
to  renew  the  old  alliance  with   the   Eoman   people.^ 


1  Titus  Livius,  XXXVII.  3. 

^  The  conduct  of  the  people  of  Lavinium  on  this  occasion  is  very  racily 
told  by  Titus  Livius.  After  long  wavering  between  the  two  parties, 
they  had  at  last  sent  forces  to  help  the  Latins,  but  scarcely  had  the 
first  troops  passed  the  gate  when  they  learnt  that  the  Latins  had  been 
beaten.  The  general,  while  getting  his  men  in  again  as  fast  as  possible, 
could  not  help  saying:  "This  is  a  little  journey  which  will  cost  us 
dear  "(Pro  paulula  via  magnam  mercedem  esse  Roynanis  solvendam). 
And,  in  fact,  the  Romans  sternly  punished  Lavinium  for  the  intention 
the  town  had  had  to  harm  them. — Titus  Livius,  VIII.  2. 

2  Prof.  Mommsen  has  lately  found  another  inscription  of  this  same 
Turranius  at  Patrica,  the  ancient  Lavinium. 


LAURENTUM.  303 

But  these  memories  of  a  glorious  past  did  not  prevent 
the  town  from  becoming  depopulated,  and  we  have 
seen  that  it  was  at  last  united  to  Lavinium,  which 
proves  that  it  had  then  no  longer  much  importance. 
The  precise  moment  of  its  final  disappearance  is 
unknown. 

Since  the  Eenaissance,  the  learned  have  at  different 
times  turned  their  attention  to  it,  and  endeavoured  to 
discover  where  it  could  be.  It  has  most  often  been 
placed  at  two  spots  situated  not  far  from  each  other, 
namely,  the  farm  of  Tor  Paterno  and  at  Capo  Cotta. 
Let  us  take  up  the  question  in  our  turn,  and  go  over 
the  country  with  a  view  to  discovering  which  spot  best 
agrees  with  the  descriptions  of  the  j^neid.  This 
little  journey  in  itself  is  not  without  its  charm ;  the 
country  is  curious,  not  much  known,  and  full  of  great 
memories,  and  I  think  we  need  not  regret  having 
ventured  into  it,  whatever  the  success  of  our  re- 
searches. 

Our  best  plan  to  avoid  losing  our  way  is  strictly  to 
follow  Virgil.  He  supposes  that  the  first  care  of 
^neas,  on  landing  on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber,  is  to  win 
the  friendship  of  the  people  of  the  country.  For  this 
purpose  he  chooses  a  hundred  of  his  companions,  whom 
he  sends  under  the  leadership  of  prudent  Ilioneus  to 
greet  King  Latinus  and  ask  his  alliance.  They  leave  for 
Laurentum  on  foot,  accomplish  their  embassy,  and  return 
within  the  day.  This  proves  that  the  town  of  Latinus 
is  not  very  far  off;  and  we  are  set  at  rest,  at  starting,  as 
to  the  length  of  the  journey  we  have  before  us.  Here 
we  are,  then,  starting  from  Ostia,  like  the  embassy  of 
^neas,   and   following   the   shore.     At   about  4  kilo- 


304  THE  COUNTRY   OF  HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

metres  distance  our  way  is  barred  by  a  tolerably  broad 
canal,  which  carries  the  waters  of  the  Stagno  di  Levanfe 
into  the  sea.  In  ancient  times,  as  now,  this  canal  was 
passed  by  means  of  a  bridge,  and  near  here  an 
inscription  has  been  discovered,  stating  that  certain 
emperors  (probably  Diocletian  and  Maximian)  have 
repaired  this  bridge,  which  was  falling  into  ruin,  and  that 
they  have  done  so  in  the  interests  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Ostia  and  of  Laurentum  {Fontem  Laurentihus  atque 
Ostiensihus  vetustate  conlapsum  restituerunt).  The 
canal,  then,  formed  the  boundary  between  the  territory 
of  the  two  towns,  and  we  are  certain,  when  we  pass  the 
bridge,  to  set  foot  in  the  domains  of  Laurentum. 

A  little  further  on  we  discover  another  relic  of  the 
old  city,  which  proves  that  we  are,  indeed,  on  the  road 
that  must  take  us  to  it.  On  leavinsj  Castel  Fusano, 
we  enter  a  large  forest  which  to  the  left  extends  as  far 
as  Decimo,  and  is  called  in  modern  maps  Selva  Lau- 
rentina,  the  name  it  bore  in  antiquity.  The  forest 
of  Laurentum,  with  its  dense  thickets  and  quagmires 
covered  with  reeds,  was  much  frequented  by  Eoman 
hunters.  They  found  there  plenty  of  very  wild 
boars,  which  showed  good  sport.  Yirgil,  in  order 
to  describe  the  energetic  resistance  of  Mezentius, 
surrounded  by  enemies  who  harass  him,  compares  him 
to  a  boar  of  Laurentum,  whom  the  hounds  have  driven 
into  the  toils.  When  he  sees  himself  shut  in  them,  he 
quivers  with  rage  and  sticks  out  the  bristles  of  his 
flanks.  None  dare  approach  him.  It  is  from  far,  and 
sheltered  from  danger,  that  the  hunters  press  him  with 
their  darts  and  their  cries.  The  fearless  beast  stands 
at  bay  on  every  side,  grinding  his  tusks  and  shaking 


LAUREXTUM.  305 

the  darts  fixed  in  his  back.^  Horace  tells  us,  how- 
ever, that  "  he  wasn't  worth  the  pains  he  cost  and  the 
dangers  he  made  liis  captors  run."  "  As  he  lives  in  the 
marshes  and  among  the  reeds,  his  flesh  is  flabby  and 
insipid ;  he  is  far  from  equalling  that  of  Umbria,  which 
feeds  only  on  acorns."^  It  must  be  remarked,  how- 
ever, that  Horace  does  not  here  express  his  own  opinion  ; 
the  person  he  makes  speak  is  a  professor  of  gastronomy 
whose  niceties  he  desires  to  ridicule.  As  a  rule,  folk 
were  not  so  fastidious,  and  Martial,  when  he  sends  one 
of  his  friends  "  a  boar  of  Laurentum,  weighing  a  good 
weight,"  ^  thinks  that  he  makes  him  a  handsome  present. 
The  excellent  Pliny  the  Younger,  though  by  nature 
neither  a  warrior  nor  a  sportsman,  nevertheless  yielded 
to  the  fashion,  and  when  at  his  country  house  near  the 
sea  w^ent  like  the  rest  to  await  the  boar  in  the  woods 
— but  his  was  a  peculiar  mode  of  hunting.  "  You  are 
going  to  laugh,"  he  writes  to  his  friend  Tacitus,  "  and  I 
allow  you  to  do  so  willingly.  I,  that  hero  whom  you 
know,  have  taken  three  boars,  and  the  fattest  in  the 
forest.  '  Eh,  what !  Pliny  ? '  you  will  say.  Yes  ;  Pliny 
himself.  But  I  managed  everything  so  as  not  to  break 
with  my  ordinary  tastes  and  my  love  of  repose.  I  sat 
quietly  near  the  nets,  and  had  at  hand  not  a  pike  or  a 
spear,  but  the  wherewithal  to  write.  I  reflected  and 
took  notes ;  for  I  wanted  to  be  sure,  in  case  I  might 
return  empty-handed,  at  least  to  bring  away  full  tablets. 
Don't  despise  this  way  of  working.  It  is  wondrous  to 
see  how  bodily  movement  enlivens  and  stimulates  the 
mind.     The  forests  that  surround  us — the  solitude,  the 


^n.,  X.  707.  2^a^_^  ij_  4^  42.  3 Martial,  IX.  49, 

U 


806  THE   COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

silence,  makes  thoughts  dawn  within  us.  I  advise  you, 
then,  when  you  go  hunting,  to  take  writing  tablets  with 
your  stores,  and  you  will  find,  from  experience,  that  not 
only  Diana  walks  the  woods,  but  that  Minerva,  too, 
is  sometimes  met  there."  ^  Things  have  not  much 
changed  in  the  Selva  Laurentina  since  Virgil  and 
Pliny's  time.  Boars  still  abound  there,  and  the  king  of 
Italy  has  no  more  favourite  relaxation  than  to  leave 
his  austere  Eoman  residence  and  go  and  hunt  there 
from  time  to  time. 

Along  the  shore,  between  the  forest  and  the  sea,  there 
stretches  a  sandy  plain,  fringed  by  a  chain  of  dunes, 
called  by  the  people  of  the  country  "  Tumoletti."  It  is 
quite  uninhabited,  and  from  Castel  Fusano  to  Tor 
Paterno,  for  more  than  9  kilometres,  one  finds  not  a 
house,  and  rarely  meets  a  human  being.  Yet  formerly 
this  was  one  of  the  most  populous  and  most  agreeable 
places  in  the  world ;  nowhere,  perhaps,  were  so  many 
rich  country  houses  found  so  close  together.  Pliny 
tells  us:  "They  followed  each  other,  sometimes- 
separate,  often  contiguous,  and  seemed  to  form  so 
many  little  towns."  ^  Does  this  mean  that  the  nature 
of  the  soil  and  the  conditions  of  the  climate  have 
changed,  and  that  in  former  times  one  was  not  ex- 
posed there  to  the  terrible  fever  scourge  ?  We  are 
bound  to  think  so,  since  this  country,  once  so  densely 
peopled,  has  become  a  desert.  But  the  change  has 
not  been  so  great  as  is  usually  asserted,  and  we 
may  suspect  that,  even  then,  one  could  not  live  there 
quite  free  from  peril.     Pliny  says  in  so  many  words : 

1  EpisL,  I.  6.  ^  Ibid.,  II.  17,  27. 


LAURENTUM.  307 

"  The  coast  of  Etruria  in  all  its  length  is  dangerous  and 
pestilential ; "  ^  and  we  know  from  Strabo  that  the  soil 
of  Terracina,  Setia,  and  Ardea,  and  all  this  coast  in 
general,  was  marshy  and  insalubrious.  Yet  the  evil 
was  clearly  much  less  grave  than  it  is  now,  for  Strabo 
immediately  adds :  "  But  it  is  nevertheless  pleasant  to 
live  there,  and  the  ground  is  not  seen  to  be  worse 
cultivated."  ^  It  was  doubtless  this  cultivation  that 
rendered  the  soil  more  wholesome,  and,  without  quite 
subduing  the  malaria,  made  it  less  offensive.  Probably 
there,  as  at  Eome,  "  the  first  fig  brought  a  few  fevers, 
and  opened  a  few  successions";^  but  little  heed  was 
paid  to  this,  and  we  shall  see  that  the  doctors  them- 
selves ended  by  recommending  their  patients  to  live  at 
Laurentum.  The  Eomans  had  managed  to  make  it  a 
place  of  rest  and  pleasure.  For  them  it  had  the 
advantage  of  being  far  enough  from  Rome  to  enable 
them  to  escape  the  importunate,  and  yet  sufficiently 
near  to  enable  them  to  get  there  in  a  few  hours.  "  I 
meed  only  start,"  says  Pliny,  "  when  I  have  finished  my 
business,  and  my  day  is  ended."*  So  this  neighbour- 
hood had  early  begun  to  be  fashionable.  Scipio 
already  used  to  come  here  with  his  friends  and  taste 
that  pleasure,  so  fraught  with  charm,  of  making  one- 
self young  for  a  moment,  when  one  feels  oneself  on  the 
•eve  of  ageing  altogether.  Tradition  loved  to  show 
Lselius  and  him  playing  like  children  w^ith  shells  on 
the  sea-beach.^  The  orator  Hortensius  also  possessed 
a  celebrated  villa  at  Laurentum,  of  which  Varro  speaks 


1  EpisL,  V.  6,  2.  2  strabo,  V.  3,  12.  ^  Horace,  F2nsf.,  I.  7,  5. 

4  EpisL,  II.  17,  2.  5  Valerius  Maximus,  A^III.  1. 


308  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND    VIRGIL. 

with  admiration.     It  comprised  a  wood  of  more  than 
50  jngera  (12  hectares,  or  nearly  30  acres),  in  which 
there  were  a  great  number  of  animals  that  had  been 
accustomed  to  come  together  at  the  sound  of  a  trumpet. 
This  enabled  the  proprietor  to  offer  his  guests,  while 
dining,  a  very  curious  entertainment.     The  repast  was 
served  on  a  hill ;  an  artist,  clad  as  Orpheus,  with  a 
long  robe  and  a  cithern,  was  introduced ;   and  on  a 
signal,  to  complete  the  illusion,  the  artist  sounded  a 
trumpet,  when  stags,  boars,  and  all  the  beasts  of  the 
forest  were  seen  running  up.     Varro  says :    "  It  was 
a  spectacle   as   fine   as  that  one  in  the  Great  Circus 
during  the  games  given  by  the  ^diles,  or  the  hunts 
that  are  made  with  the  beasts  of  Africa."  ^     But  of  all 
these  country  houses,  where  the  great  lords  of  Eome 
passed  a  good  half  of  their  lives,  none  is  so  well  known 
to  us  as  that  of  Pliny.     Under  pretext  of  inducing  his 
friend  Gallus  to  come  and  see  it,  he  gives  him,  in  a 
celebrated   letter,  a   detailed   description   of   it  which 
places  it  quite  before  our  eyes.     The  perusal  of  this 
letter    is    of  the  greatest    interest  to  all  who  would 
have  some  idea  of  the  magnificent  Eoman  villas.     It 
shows  us  to  what  degree  everything  was  arranged  in 
them  for  the  comfort  of   life.      To  our  taste,  nothing 
is  wanting   but   a   park   and   grounds.      Such   a   fine 
house  would  have  needed  a  better  surrounding.     But 
perhaps  the  very  reason  Pliny  prefers   it  to  all   his 
other  villas  is  because  he  is  not  harassed  there  with  the 
cares  of  property — is  freer,  more  at  his  ease,  and,  being 


De  re  rust.,  III.  13. 


LAURENTUM.  ^309 

distracted  by  nothing,  can  work  better  than  elsewhere. 
"  Here,"  he  says,  "  I  hear  no  one  speak  evil  of  others  and 
myself  speak  evil  of  none,  if  not  of  myself  when  ill 
content  with  what  I  have  done.  Here  I  escape  from 
fear  and  hope,  and  laugh  at  all  that  may  be  said ;  I 
only  hold  converse  with  myself  and  my  books.  0  sweet 
and  good  life  !  Pleasant  repose,  worth  more  than  what 
is  honoured  with  the  names  of  work  and  business ! 
O  sea,  0  shores,  my  true  study-rooms !  What  a  source 
of  inspiration  yoii  are  to  me  1 "  ^  We  know,  as  surely 
as  possible,  where  Pliny's  villa  must  have  been.  He 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  indicate  its  site  with  such 
exactness  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  mistake.  He 
tells  us  it  is  on  the  sea-shore,  17  millia  (a  little  more  than 
15  J  English  miles)  from  Piome ;  that  one  can  get  there 
by  the  Via  Ostiensis  and  the  Via  Laurentina ;  but  that 
one  must  leave  the  former  at  the  eleventh,  and  the 
latter  at  the  fourteenth  mile.  With  a  compass,  then, 
on  a  well-made  map,  we  can  mark  the  place  exactly. 
It  is  at  a  little  distance  from  Castel  Fusano,  towards 
the  spot  called  "  La  Palombara,"  where  it  is  usually 
located.  As  for  thinking  that  some  ruins  of  it  may  be 
found  by  excavating  the  soil  here,  this  is  an  illusion 
and  a  chimera.  The  dwellings  of  private  persons  are 
not  made  to  last  for  ages.  That  of  Pliny,  from  Trojan 
to  Theodosius,  must  have  often  changed  owners,  and  as 
each  of  its  new  owners  doubtless  desired  to  accommodate 
it  to  his  taste  and  his  fortune,  it  is  probable  that,  even  if 
it  still  existed  at  the  end  of  the  Empire,  it  was  no  longer 
the  same  house.     Nibby  was  right,  then,  in  saying  that 

1  Pliny,  Epist.,  I.  9. 


310     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

nothiug  now  remains  of  it  but  the  pleasant  description 
left  us  by  Pliny. 


III. 


TOR  PATERNO — CHARACTER  OF  THE  RUINS  FOUND  THERE — 
THE  VILLA  OF  COMMODUS — MARCH  OF  ^NEAS  ON 
LAURENTUM — AMBUSH  OF  TURNUS — PROBABLE  SITUA- 
TION OF  LAURENTUM. 

After  traversing  this  desert  for  several  kilometres, 
we  at  length  descry  before  us  a  vast  habitation,  with 
strange  and  massive  forms.  It  is  Torre  di  Paterno,  or, 
in  common  parlance,  Tor  Paterno,  a  very  large  farm 
belonging  to  the  King  of  Italy.  It  is  situated  not  far 
from  the  sea,  to  which  w^e  are  brought  by  an  avenue  of 
trees,  ending  in  a  little  pavilion  built  in  the  midst  of 
the  sands  of  the  shore. 

What  gives  this  its  importance  in  our  eyes  is  that 
nearly  all  the  learned  consider  it  built  on  the  site  of 
Laurentum.  The  illustrious  antiquarian  Fabretti  was, 
I  believe,  the  first  to  pronounce  this  opinion.^  In 
connection  with  an  inscription  he  had  found  in  this 
vicinity,  and  was  studying,  he  related  that  he  had  seen 
considerable  ruins  at  Tor  Paterno,  and  did  not  doubt 
but  that  they  were  the  last  remains  of  the  town  of 
Latinus.  He  added  that,  being  eighty  years  of  age, 
he  much  feared  that  he  had  neither  the  strength  nor  the 
time  to  prove  this.     In  fact,  he  has  nowhere  done  so  ; 

^  Fabretti,  Inscr.,  p.  752. 


LAURENTUM.  311 

but   he   has   been   believed   upon   his   word,   and   his 
opinion  has  gained  ground. 

On  reaching  Tor  Paterno,  a  fine  modern  inscription 
first  meets  our  eyes,  informing  us  that  we  are  indeed  at 
Laurentum,  the  very  place  which  was  the  cradle  of  Eome. 

LAVRENTVM 
ROMANS  VRBIS    INCVNABVLA. 

The  inscription  then  records  that,  on  14th  October 
1845,  Pope  Gregory  XVL,  an  ardent  lover  of  antiquity, 
visited  this  spot,  and  that  the  very  fields  trembled  with 
joy  at  the  honour  done  them  by  the  Sovereign  Pontiff. 
This  noble  visit  seemed  officially  to  consecrate  the  right 
of  Tor  Paterno  to  identify  itself  with  Laurentum. 

At  Tor  Paterno,  and  in  its  vicinity,  considerable 
ruins  have  certainly  been  found ;  and  one  is  at  first 
inclined  to  think  that  a  spot  where  antiquity  has  left 
so  many  relics  must  have  held  a  certain  place  in 
history.  This  is  the  basis  of  Fabretti's  opinion,  and 
what  gave  it  so  much  credit  down  to  our  days.  But 
is  it  possible  for  a  moment  to  admit  that  these  are  the 
ruins  of  a  town  ?  This  is  the  whole  question,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  a  rapid  examination  will  suthce  for 
its  solution. 

They  are  chiefly  accumulated  about  the  farm.  The 
modern  house  has  lodged  itself  in  their  midst  anyhow, 
leaning  its  little  rough-cast  and  whitened  shell  against 
huge  walls  of  red  brick,  that  domi>iate  it  on  every  side. 
In  order  to  understand  the  extent  and  grandeur  of  the 
ancient  monument,  we  must  go  over  the  habitation. 
For  the  present  edifice,  it  has  only  been  possible  to 


312  THE   COUNTRY   OF   IIOEACE   AXD   VIRGIL. 

utilise  a  part  of  them.  Behind,  in  a  sort  of  enclosure 
contiguous  to  the  farm,  rise  great  fragments  of  wall, 
higher  and  more  massive  than  those  of  the  facade,  and 
sometimes  supported  by  buttresses.  Long  study  is  not 
needed  in  order  to  recognise  the  kind  of  edifice  to 
which  these  remains  belonged.  It  is  impossible  to  see 
them  without  thinking  of  the  great  buildings  on  the 
Palatine,  and,  above  all,  of  the  villa  built  by  Hadrian 
at  Tivoli.  Although  in  a  worse  condition  and  of  more 
modest  dimensions,  they  are  of  the  same  family  and 
nearly  of  the  same  period.  We  have  before  us  a  palace 
of  the  Imperial  epoch ;  and  it  is  easy  to  recognise 
the  great  halls  with  their  arched  doorways  and  the 
vaults  which  decorated  their  interiors.  Outside  the 
farm,  in  the  fields  extending  towards  the  right,  ruins 
are  met  with  everywhere.  These  are  usually  masses 
of  cement  and  brick  from  some  fallen  wall  or  vault, 
with,  from  time  to  time,  fragments  of  walls  in  better 
preservation,  and  even  halls  of  which  we  can  distinguish 
the  ground-plan.  At  every  turn  there  are  pieces  of 
marble  or  stucco ;  capitals  and  shafts  of  columns,  and  I 
even  found  a  headless  bust,  whose  drapery  was  carefully 
done,  and  which  appeared  to  belong  to  the  time  of 
the  Antonines.  On  the  other  side,  we  can  trace  the 
remains  of  a  large  aqueduct  reaching  out  into  the 
country.  Pliny  remarks  that  this  neighbourhood  has 
the  disadvantage  of  possessing  no  springs.  In  his 
time  people  were  content  to  dig  wells  there,  which, 
although  very  near  the  sea,  yielded  limpid  and  pure 
water.^     It  is  therefore   probable    that   the   aqueduct 

1  Ejnst.,  II.  17,  25. 


LAURENTUM.  313 

which    brought    water    at    great    expense    from    tlie 
mountains  was  only  built  after  Trajan's  time. 

Our   walk   ended,   it   is   easy   for   us   to   solve   the 
problem  we  set  ourselves  just  now.     Surely  these  are 
not  the   ruins  of  a  town  that  we  have  just  visited. 
A   town,   especially   when    ancient,    like    Laurentum, 
contains  monuments  of  various  epochs,  and,  further- 
more, the  dwellings  of  both  rich  and  poor  are  found 
there.     Here  everything  seems  to  be  of  the  same  age  ; 
brick  constructions  of  the  Antonine  period  predominat- 
ing almost  throughout,  and,  mutilated  though  they  be, 
retaining  an  air  of  power  and  grandeur  which  forbids 
us  to  think  they  were  the  hovels  of  poor  people.     We 
have  then,  before  us,  the  dwelling  of  a  rich  man — 
probably  the   palace  of   a   prince.     Let   us   push   our 
conjectures  further,  and  seek  to  ascertain  what  emperor 
could  have  had  his  residence  here.     It  is  not  a  difficult 
task.     In  189,  Eome  was  ravaged  by  a  plague  which 
filled   its   inhabitants  with  the  most  terrible  dismay. 
"  One  met  nothing,"  says  Herodian,  "  but  people  filling 
their  nostrils  and  ears  with  the  most  powerful  scents 
or  unceasingly  burning  perfumes."     The  doctors  pre- 
tended that  these  odours,  by  occupying  the  passages, 
prevented   the  bad  air  from  entering,  neutralised  its 
powers  by  their  own,  and  stopped  its  effect.^     These 
remedies  were  of  course  useless,  and,  as  they  did  not 
prevent  people  from  dying,  the  Emperor  Commodus, 
as  cowardly  as  he  was  cruel,  sought  a  more  efficacious 
means  of  escape  from  the  scourge — he  left  Rome.     His 
physicians,  among   whom   was   perhaps    Galen,  coun- 

^  Herodian,  I.  12. 


314  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

selled  him  to  take  refuge  at  Laurentum.  The  reason 
they  had  for  recommending  this  town  was  that  it  was 
built  in  a  very  bracing  country,  and  was  surrounded  by 
laurel  woods  wdiich  had  given  it  the  name  it  bore. 
They  doubtless  attributed  to  the  laurel  some  of  those 
qualities  we  assign  to  the  eucalyptus.  It  was  certainly 
not  in  the  town  of  Laurentum  itself  that  the  Emperor 
came  to  ask  an  asylum.  He  probably  possessed  some 
country  house  in  the  neighbourhood,  which  he  had 
built  or  embellished,  and  went  there  to  pass  all  the 
time  that  the  malady  lasted.  Nothing  then  prevents 
us  from  supposing  that  the  great  walls  of  Tor  Paterno 
are  what  remains  to  us  of  the  villa  of  Commodus."^ 

But  the  problem  is  not  yet  quite  solved.  Supposing, 
as  seems  to  me  certain,  that  the  ruins  we  have  just 
visited  are  those  of  a  palace  and  not  of  a  town,  it  may 
be  admitted  that  the  town  was  near  the  palace,  and 
Laurentum  may  still  be  placed,  if  not  at  Tor  Paterno 
itself,  at  least  in  the  vicinity.  Bonstetten  quite  refuses 
to  believe  this,  and  it  seems  to  him  that  the  place 
in  no  wise  fits  in  with  Virgil's  narrative.  Tor 
Paterno,  he  says,  is  only  500  metres  from  the  shore : 
Laurentum  must  have  been  much  further.  In  none  of 
the  battles  that  took  place  round  the  town  of  Latinus 
is  the  sea  mentioned,  whereas  Yirgil  constantly  spoke 
of  it  while  they  were  fighting  before  the  Trojan  camp. 


^  Gell,  in  his  Tojjography  of  Rome,  calls  attention  to  certain 
analogies  of  construction  between  the  ruins  of  Tor  Paterno  and  those 
found  on  the  Appian  Way,  and  to  which  the  name  of  Roma  Vecchia  is 
given.  These  latter  belong  to  a  villa  belonging  to  Commodus,  and 
which  he  had  repaired.  The  architecture  of  the  two  edifices  seems 
to  him.  to  be  of  the  same  time. 


LAURENT UM.  ^15 

This  reasoning  quite  convinced  Nibby,  and  is  what 
decided  him  to  withdraw  Laurentnm  inland,  as  far  as 
the  Casali  di  Ccqwcotta,  where  he  had  discovered  some 
ancient  remains.  Let  us  take  up  the  question  again  in 
our  turn,  and  see  whether  they  have  both  well  inter- 
preted what  Virgil  tells  us. 

First  of  all,  is  it  true  that  he  makes  no  allusion 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  sea,  in  the  two  last 
Books  of  the  J^neid  ?  Bonstetten  says  so,  and  Nibby 
repeats  it  after  him,  but  I  think  they  both  go  too  far. 
King  Latinus,  in  the  sacrifice  preceding  the  combat  of 
Turnus  and  ^neas,  begins  by  calling  the  earth,  sea, 
and  sky  to  witness  that  he  will  be  true  to  his  promises  : 
Ccelum,  mare,  sidera  juro}  Well,  we  know  that  the 
Eomans  were  very  precise  and  circumstantial  people, 
who  liked,  above  all  things,  to  be  perfectly  well  under- 
stood by  those  with  whom  they  had  to  do.  So  in 
addressing  the  gods,  they  were  in  the  habit  of  touching 
or  showing  the  things  whose  names  they  pronounced, 
in  order  that  no  confusion  might  be  possible.  I  there- 
fore think  the  sea  must  have  been  pretty  close  to  the 
spot  from  which  Latinus  spoke — that  it  could  at  least  be 
seen — and  that  his  hand  stretched  towards  it  at  the 
moment  when  he  invoked  it  in  witness  of  his  sincerity 
must  have  added  precision  and  solemnity  to  his  oath. 
A  little  further  on,  when  the  combat  has  begun,  he 
alludes  to  a  wild  olive,  dedicated  to  Faunus,  rising  in 
the  midst  of  the  plain.  "  It  was  a  tree  venerated 
by  sailors.  When  they  were  saved  from  the  wreck, 
they  came  to  bring  it  their  offerings,  and  hung  their 

i^w.,  XII.  196. 


316  THE   COUNTRY   OF   IIOEACE   AND   YIEGIL. 

clothes  upon  its  branches."  ^  I  own  my  inability  to 
suppose  that  "  the  tree  venerated  by  sailors "  grew 
inland.  Catullus  tells  us  that  in  their  dangers  they 
are  accustomed  to  address  "  the  gods  of  the  shore  ; "  ^  so 
it  must  liave  been  to  some  tree  near  the  shore  that 
they  came  to  hang  their  soaking  garments  when 
delivered  from  peril  and  safe  on  dry  land.  It  is 
natural  that  they  should  be  in  haste  to  return  thanks 
to  the  gods  for  their  protection,  and  that  they  should 
do  so  in  the  very  face  of  the  floods  by  which  they  had 
nearly  perished.  Thus  we  see  that  in  ancient  pictures 
representing  the  sea-shore,  the  artists  love  to  paint 
little  chapels  decked  by  the  gratitude  of  sailors  with 
garlands  and  festoons. 

These  are  a  few  reasons  for  thinking  that  Laurentum 
could  not  be  far  from  the  sea,  but  it  is  true  there  are 
others  which  might  prevent  us  from  thinking  it  could 
have  been  very  close.  The  Eleventh  Book  of  the 
u^)icid  contains  an  account  of  a  military  incident 
deserving  close  study.  I  said  just  now  that  Virgil's 
battles  quite  resemble  Homer's ;  but  we  must  make  a 
reservation.  War  in  the  ^neid  appears  less  primitive, 
more  intricate,  and  more  learned  than  in  the  Hiad. 
In  Homer,  each  fights  for  himself  and  follows  no  in- 
spiration but  his  courage,  whereas,  among  the  soldiers 
of  ^neas  and  Turnus,  there  is  more  discipline  and 
concert.  The  meUe  still  remains  sufficiently  confused  ; 
but,  with  the  exception  of  these  furious  encounters, 
where  every  one  presses  forward  and  has  no  other  fixed 
idea  than  to  go  as  far  and  hit  as  hard  as  he  can,  one 


^^n.,  766.  2  Catullus,  4,  22. 


LAUKENTUM.  317 

feels  a  little  more  art  and  tactics  in  their  manner  of 
fighting.      Turnus,    for    example,   conducts    the    siege 
of  the  Trojan  camp  with  a  certain  skill.     Messapus, 
whom  he  chooses  to  blockade  the   enemy,  commands 
fourteen  Eutnli  chiefs,  and  each  of  them  has  a  hundred 
soldiers  under  him.    Guard  is  mounted,  too,  or  relieved, 
and  bivouac  fires  are  lighted.     Preparatory  to  giving 
the  assault,  the  wall  is  beaten  with  a  ram,  and  then  the 
troops  advance  tortoise  fashion — that  is  to  say,  raising 
their  shields  above  their  heads  to  protect  themselves 
from  the  enemy's  missiles.     These  are  devices  of  which 
Homer's  heroes  never  thoudit.     But  more  remarkable 
than  all  the  rest  is  the  way  in  which  ^neas  sets  to 
work  to  take  Laurentum.     The  Latins,  beaten  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber,  have  just  fled,  and  have   sought 
refuge   in  the   town    of    Latinus,    which   is   about   to 
become  the  centre  of  the  final  combats.    ^Eneas  decides 
to    follow   them.      May    I  be   permitted   to  say   that, 
in   order  to   insure   success,   he   imagines   a   "turning 
movement  "  ?     The  term  is  very  modern  ;  but  there  is 
no  other  so  exactly  expressing  the  process  he  is  going 
to  put  in  practice.       Placed  as  he  is    at  Ostia,  and 
having  before    him  the  great  pond  called  Stagno    di 
Levante,  he  can  get  into  the  country  facing  him  by  both 
banks  of  it.      He    divides  his  army  into  two  bodies, 
causing  them  to  take  two  different  ways.     The  horse- 
men under  Tarchon  advance  along  the  sea-shore.     The 
foot   and   the   bulk    of   the   army  turn   in   the   other 
direction  ;  but,  instead  of  following  the  edge  of  the  pond, 
and  not  leaving  ^the  plain,  they  rise  to  the  left  and 
plunge  among  the  hills.     The  poet  does  not  tell  us  the 
reason  that  induces  ^neas  to  undertake  this  delicate 


318     THE  COUNTEY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

operation.  Does  he  fear  that  the  sandy  roads  of  the 
plain  will  prove  inconvenient  for  people  heavily  armed  ? 
It  may  be  thought  so,  but  it  is  more  probable  that  he 
hoped  by  debouching  upon  Laurentum  by  a  road  that 
was  not  the  shortest  and  most  natural,  to  be  less 
expected,  and  have  more  chance  of  surprising  the 
enemy.  In  that  case  he  is  mistaken,  for  Turnus,  who 
possesses  scouts,  has  discovered  his  designs,  and  is 
preparing  to  frustrate  them.  "  There  is,"  says  Virgil, 
"  in  the  recesses  of  the  mountain,  a  deep  valley,  fit  for 
surprises  and  the  ruses  of  war,  and  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  heights  covered  with  thick  woods.  One  gets 
there  by  a  narrow  path  and  by  a  close  gorge,  difficult 
of  access.  Above,  towards  the  highest  summit,  is 
hid  a  plateau,  which  they  do  not  know  of ;  a  safe  and 
convenient  post,  whether  it  be  wished  to  rush  upon  the 
enemy,  or  whether  it  be  preferred  to  remain  upon  the 
heisfht  and  roll  down  hus^e  rocks.  It  is  thither  the 
Eutuli  chief  proceeds  by  unknown  roads.  He  seizes 
the  position,  and  first  finds  himself  in  the  perfidious 
forest."  ^  But  all  his  projects  are  crossed  by  unfore- 
seen events.  While  he  is  awaiting  his  enemy,  and  hop- 
ing to  crush  him  in  his  passage,  they  come  in  hot  haste  to 
tell  him  that  Tarchon's  horsemen  have  beaten  his,  and 
that,  meeting  no  serious  resistance,  they  are  approach- 
ing Laurentum,  in  order  to  take  it.  He  must,  of 
course,  hasten  as  fast  as  possible  to  defend  his  allies. 
^'  He  leaves  the  hill  which  he  occupied,  and  quits  the 
impenetrable  woods."-  Scarcely  is  he  lost  from  view 
and  entering  the  plain,  when  ^neas,  penetrating  the 

i^w.,  XL  522.  ^  Ibid.,  896. 


LAUKENTUM.  319 

defile,  henceforth  free,  crosses  the  heights  and  issues 
from  the  thick  forest.  Thus  both  march  rapidly 
towards  the  town,  and  are  only  separated  by  a  short 
interval. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  from  this  incident,  the  site  of 
Laurentum  may  be  deduced  with  some  probability. 
The  town  was  situated  in  the  plain,  but  close  to 
the  mountain ;  close  enough  to  the  shore  for  the  sea 
to  be  visible,  yet  so  near  the  hills  that  one  came  upon  it 
on  issuing  from  the  forests  and  the  heights.  Neither  Tor 
Paterno  nor  Capocotta  seem  to  me  quite  to  fulfil  these 
conditions.  The  first  of  these  two  places  is  too  near 
the  sea  and  too  far  from  the  hills.  If  it  is  where 
Laurentum  stood,  we  no  longer  understand  the  man- 
oeuvre of  ^neas,  and  to  go  round  the  mountain  in 
order  to  reach  it  is  a  ridiculously  circuitous  proceed- 
ing. The  other,  being  in  the  mountain  itself,  and 
situated  a  little  above  Pratica,  is  somewhat  too  far  from 
the  shore.  Strabo,  relating  that  ^neas  left  Laurentum 
for  Lavinium,  says  that  he  plunged  into  the  country. 
If  we  place  Laurentum  at  Capocotta,  the  expression  is 
no  longer  accurate,  since,  on  the  contrary,  from  Capo- 
cotta to  Lavinium  one  descends  for  several  miles. 
Thus  Capocotta  no  more  satisfies  those  w^ho  would 
find  the  ancient  town  of  Lavinium  than  does  Tor 
Paterno.^ 

But  where  could  it  have  been,  then  ?  Of  course 
there  is  no  question  here  of  exactly  designating  its  site 
and  pointing  out  its  ruins.     It  is  very  probable  that. 


^  The  map  in  Cell's  Topography  of  Home  gives  Capocotta  (|uite  an 
inexact  position. 


320     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

in  tlie  words  of  tlie  poet,  "  even  those  ruins  have 
perished  " ;  and,  in  any  case,  if  they  still  lie  hid  under 
some  heap  of  rubbish,  a  passing  traveller  cannot  flatter 
himself  that  he  will  discover  them  ;  but  he  may  get 
relatively  near  them.  Let  us  try  to  do  so,  and,  at  the 
risk  of  tiring  the  reader,  start  again,  for  the  purpose  of 
approximatively  settling  the  situation  of  the  town.  Just 
now,  it  will  be  remembered,  we  left  Ostia  and  skirted 
the  coast.  Let  us  this  time  take  a  new  road.  Virgil's 
account,  which  we  have  just  read,  proves  that  we  shall 
not  do  wrong  to  ascend  a  little  towards  the  heights. 
In  going  from  Eome  to  Tor  Paterno,  we  pass  through 
three  regions  that  have  not  the  same  character.  First 
there  is  the  vast  undulating  plain  called  the  Campagna, 
by  w^hich  Eome  is  surrounded  on  all  sides ;  then  a 
series  of  hills  covered  with  woods ;  and,  lastly,  the  plain 
beginning  again  and  extending  uninterruptedly  to  the 
sea.  The  intermediate  zone  is  the  one  that  most  strikes 
the  traveller.  It  begins  at  Decimo,  a  kind  of  fortified 
farm,  recalling  the  days  when  in  this  land  one  could 
only  sleep  behind  strong  walls.  There  the  ground 
rises,  the  aspect  of  the  country  changes,  and  one  enters 
what  remains  of  the  wood  of  Laurentum.  I  went 
through  it  in  the  month  of  May,  when  all  the  bushes 
were  in  flower ;  and  what  in  my  eyes  made  this  journey 
most  charming,  was  that  at  every  step  the  incidents  of 
the  way  awakened  in  me  some  memory  of  the  JEneid. 
Passing  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  great  trees,  I 
recollected  that  hither  the  Trojans  and  the  Latins  had 
come  after  the  battle  to  cut  wood  for  the  funeral 
pyres.  "  In  virtue  of  the  truce,"  says  the  poet,  "  they 
start  for  the   forest   and   walk   about   the   mountains 


LAURENTUM.  321 

together.  The  ash  resounds  under  the  blows  of  the 
axe ;  they  fell  the  pines,  whose  head  touched  the  sky  ; 
the  wedges  cease  not  to  rend  the  oak  and  the  sweet- 
smelling  juniper ;  and  the  waggons  groan  beneath  the 
weight  of  the  young  elms."  ^  As  in  the  time  of  Virgil, 
the  road  is  still  bordered  by  ashes,  elms,  oaks,  and 
pines.  The  savage-looking  woodcutters  and  charcoal- 
burners,  whom  I  from  time  to  time  saw  issue  from 
some  dark  alley,  reminded  me  that  ^neas  already  met 
robust  peasants  there,  armed  with  knotty  sticks,  and  I 
felt  as  if,  at  some  turn  of  the  road,  I  was  about  to  see 
the  terrible  Tyrrhus,  "  emitting  cries  of  fury,  and  bran- 
dishing his  hatchet  against  those  who  passed."  ^  As 
we  get  deeper  into  the  wood,  the  road  becomes  more 
varied,  rising  and  falling  continually,  and  hills  succeed- 
ing hills,  cut  sharply  by  somewhat  deep  valleys.  It  is 
the  only  spot  where  the  ambuscade  of  Turnus  can  be 
placed  with  some  probability,  ^neas  doubtless  got 
there  by  following  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  and  upon 
one  of  these  summits  covered  with  trees  his  enemy 
silently  awaited  him.  The  landscape,  I  own,  is  less 
gloomy  and  terrible  than  Virgil  represents  it,  but  in 
poets  one  must  overlook  a  few  exaggerations.  It  is 
natural,  too,  that  on  quitting  the  monotonous  plains  of 
the  Campagna  the  least  hills  should  appear  mountains 
and  the  smallest  valleys  assume  the  proportions  of 
veritable  precipices.  Here  we  are  then,  about  to  leave 
what  Virgil  calls  "  the  deep  forests."  At  this  moment 
we  come  upon  Castel  Porziano,  a  handsome  chateau, 
formerly  belonging  to  a  noble  Eoman  family,  which  the 

1  ^n.,  XL  134.  2  j^j^^^  Yii^  509. 


322  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

King  of  Italy  has  repaired  and  much  embellished,  and 
turned  into  a  hunting-box.  This  chateau,  in  its  present 
state,  resembles  a  little  village.  Besides  the  King's 
house,  which  is  of  modest  appearance,  it  contains 
dwellings  for  the  servants,  barracks  for  the  soldiers, 
an  osteria,  and  a  sali  e  tabctcci  store.  It  is  so  placed 
as  to  offer  good  views  from  all  sides.  A  few  minutes 
ere  getting  there,  while  following  the  avenue  of  pines, 
we  have  before  us,  on  turning  round,  the  mass  of  the 
Alban  Hills,  and  in  the  immense  plain,  bounded  by 
Soracte  and  the  Sabine  mountains,  Eome,  with  a  mul- 
titude of  towns  and  villages  bearing  glorious  names. 
Directly  on  leaving  it  we  catch  sight  of  the  sea, 
including  a  vast  extent  of  coast.  While  I  stop  to 
enjoy  this  sight  a  memory  of  Virgil  occurs  to  my  mind. 
It  is  doubtless  along  these  last  heights  that  Queen 
Amata  must  have  taken  refuge  when,  in  order  to 
withdraw  her  daughter  from  ^neas,  she  called  the 
women  of  Laurentum  to  celebrate  the  orgies  of  Bacchus 
with  her.  From  below,  their  savage  cries  must  have 
been  heard,  and  they  must  have  been  seen  passing 
through  the  trees  with  bare  shoulders  and  floating  hair, 
waving  their  thyrses  crowned  with  vine,  or  furiously 
shaking  their  blazing  torches.  From  Castel  Porziano 
the  descent  becomes  rapid,  and  the  plain  is  soon  reached. 
It  is  at  the  place  of  egress,  at  the  foot  of  the  hills, 
two  or  three  kilometres  from  the  sea,  a  little  lower 
than  Capocotta,  a  little  higher  than  Tor  Paterno,  and 
about  half-way  between  Ostia  and  Pratica,  that  I  should 
be  inclined  to  locate  Laurentum.  The  place  quite 
agrees  with  the  descriptions  of  the  JEncid,  and  Virgil 
seems  to  take  us  by  the  hand  and  lead  us  thither. 


LAURENTUM.  323 


IV. 

THE  PALACE  OF  LATINUS  —  HOW  VIRGIL  COMPOSES  HIS 
DESCRIPTIONS  —  WHY  HE  DOES  NOT  EXACTLY  RE- 
PRODUCE THOSE  OF  HOMER — MIXTURE  OF  DIFFERENT 
EPOCHS — UNITY  OF  THE  WHOLE. 

It  is  not  the  only  service  he  renders  us,  for,  after  point- 
ing out  the  site  of  the  town,  he  helps  our  imagination  to 
reconstruct  it.  He  depicts  it,  not  as  it  was  in  his  time, 
half  deserted  and  ruined,  but  as  he  supposes  it  must 
have  been  in  the  days  of  good  King  Latinus. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  scarcely  had  ^neas 
landed  in  Italy  when  he  sent  deputies  to  solicit  the 
friendship  of  the  Latins,  and  whom  we  followed  some 
time  in  the  beginning  of  their  journey.  After  marching 
along  the  sea,  they  turn  to  the  left,  and  arrive  at  Lauren- 
tum.  Here  Virgil  describes  the  sight  depicted  before 
them.  In  a  large  plain,  before  the  ramparts,  all  the 
youth  are  assembled.  "  The  lads,  and  those  in  the 
prime  of  life,  are  engaged  in  breaking  a  horse,  and 
guiding  a  chariot  through  the  dust.  Others  are  striving 
to  bend  a  resisting  bow,  launch  with  nervous  arms 
flexible  javelins,  or  contend  together  in  speed  or 
strength."  ^  The  town  is  situated  near  a  large  marsh 
and  defended  by  strong  walls.  Upon  a  height  rises  the 
King's  palace.  This  edifice,  majestic  and  immense,  is 
supported  by  a  hundred  columns,  and  surrounded  by  a 
gloomy   wood,  which  has  from  all  times   inspired  the 

i^/i.,  YIL  160. 


324  THE   COUNTRY    OF   IIOllACE  AND   YIKGIL. 

Latins  with  a  religious  awe.  It  is  a  temple  as  well  as 
a  palace.  Assemblies  of  the  Senate  are  held  there,  and 
oa  festivals  the  chiefs  of  the  nation  come  thither  to  sit 
down  to  solemn  repasts.  It  is  there  the  kings  receive  the 
sceptre  on  their  accession,  and  the  fasces  are  borne  before 
them  for  the  first  time.  In  the  vestibule  rich  statues 
of  cedar-wood  represent  the  king's  ancestors.  Each  is 
in  its  place  :  Italus  ;  the  venerable  Sabinus,  who  planted 
the  vine,  still  holding  his  bent  sickle ;  and  Saturnus ; 
Janus  with  the  double  face ;  and  all  the  kings  since 
the  beginning  of  the  nation,  and  the  warriors  who 
received  glorious  wounds  fighting  for  the  fatherland. 
There  are  also  seen,  hanging  from  the  roofs  of  the 
sacred  porticoes,  the  arms  and  chariots  of  the  vanquished, 
axes,  casques,  the  gates  of  conquered  towns,  shields,  and 
beaks  taken  from  ships.  Picus  himself — King  Picus, 
tamer  of  horses — is  seated,  covered  with  the  trabant, 
bearing  in  his  hand  the  augur's  wand,  and  in  the  other 
the  slanting  shield  of  the  Salian  priests.  "  ^ 

This  is  the  idea  which  Virgil  gives  us  of  the  palace  of 
Latinus.  Could  it  have  been  quite  thus,  and  is  the 
poet's  description  of  a  nature  entirely  to  satisfy  a  rigor- 
ous historian  and  antiquary  ?  In  order  to  ascertain 
this,  let  us  consult  the  curious  book  just  published  by 
Dr  Helbig,  in  which  he  seeks  to  elucidate  Homer's  epic 
by  means  of  monuments.^  We  have,  in  fact,  to-day, 
two  means  of  going  back  to  those  remote  times.  The 
first  consists  of  the  faithful  picture  drawn  of  them  in  the 


^^n.,  VII.  170. 

^  The  exact  title  of  Dr  Helbig's  book  is  :  Das  Homerischc  Epos  aus 
den  Denkmdlern  erldutert. 


LAURENTUM.  325 

Homeric  poems.  Antiquity  lives  in  them,  and  in  order 
to  live  in  it,  we  might  be  content  to  read  them ;  but  the 
excavations  undertaken  in  late  years  in  Greece  and 
Italy  furnish  an  additional  source  of  information  not  to 
be  despised.  After  exhausting  the  first  layers  of  the 
soil,  the  explorers  of  our  day  decided  to  go  lower.  The 
depths  they  penetrated  to  will  probably  never  yield  us 
many  masterpieces  ;  but  they  preserve  the  memory  of 
very  ancient  epochs,  and  from  time  to  time  they  give 
us  a  few  remains  of  them.  These  are  arms  of  stone,  of 
bronze,  or  of  iron,  pottery  with  rough  designs,  and,  some- 
times, in  tombs  rather  more  modern,  jewellery,  metal 
coffers,  rough  paintings  representing  battles  or  feasts — 
those  two  pleasures  of  young  nations.  Dr  Helbig 
thinks  that  these  remains,  nearly  contemporary  with 
Homer,  may  serve  as  a  commentary  and  an  illustration 
to  his  verses.  They  bring  into  relief  what  is  often 
masked  by  the  charm  of  his  poetry,  namely,  that  he 
lived  in  the  midst  of  a  barbarous  society.  From  the 
very  first  this  society  had  in  Greece  attained  perfection 
in  poetry,  but  the  other  arts  did  not  proceed  so  quickly. 
In  reading  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey,  we  are  tempted  to 
think  that  but  little  way  remained  for  it  to  make ;  but 
on  seeing  the  arms  and  utensils  it  used,  we  soon  recog- 
nise that  it  was  still  making  its  first  steps. 

Virgil,  in  composing  the  jEneid,  found  himself  in  a 
difficulty  unknown  to  Homer.  He  could  not,  like  his 
predecessor,  give  the  heroes  of  his  poem  the  manners  of 
the  people  of  his  time.  Had  the  Trojans  of  vEneas  and 
the  Latins  of  Turnus  quite  resembled  the  people  of  the 
court  of  Augustus,  he  would  have  been  laughed  at.  He 
was  therefore  obliged  to  age  them,  and,  as  far  as  possible. 


326  THE   COUXTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

carry  them  back  to  their  epoch.  He  could,  it  is  true, 
lighten  this  work  by  being  content  to  copy  Homer,  and 
this  he  has  often  done  ;  but  he  has  also  not  unfrequently 
departed  from  his  model.  It  is  patent,  for  example, 
that  the  palace  of  Latinus,  of  which  we  have  just  read 
the  description,  is  more  majestic  and  more  sumptuous 
than  the  dwellings  of  the  kings  of  the  Iliad  or  of  the 
Odyssey.  Homer,  speaking  of  the  house  of  Ulysses, 
tells  us  that  it  is  the  finest  in  Ithaca,  and  that  it  first 
attracts  all  eyes,  because  it  possesses  a  court  surrounded 
by  walls  with  folding  gates,  which  shut  well !  This  is 
the  masjnificence  that  distinfyuished  it  from  others !  In 
the  royal  houses  there  is  no  question  of  statues  filling 
the  vestibule,  and  of  columns  supporting  the  roof,  as  in 
that  of  Latinus.  It  is  much  if  the  facade  is  ornamented 
with  great  polished  and  shining  stones,  on  which  the 
king  comes  to  sit  and  administer  justice  to  his  people. 
Manners,  we  see,  are  very  simple,  and  we  are  at  the 
beginning  of  a  civilization.  What  proves  it  still  better 
are  certain  details  drawn  by  Dr  Helbig  from  the 
Homeric  poems,  and  which  depict  the  time.  In  those 
great  apartments,  where  the  suitors  of  Penelope  and  the 
flower  of  the  Achaean  nobility  feast  all  day,  the  remains 
of  the  repast  bestrew  the  floor,  and  sheep  or  ax  bones 
lie  about,  which  the  revellers  sometimes  fling  at  each 
other's  heads.  The  hall  where  they  eat  is  the  same  in 
which  the  feast  was  prepared,  and  it  is  much  that  a 
small  hole  has  been  left  in  the  roof  to  let  out  the  smoke. 
The  smell  of  broiled  meat,  however,  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  thought  unpleasant  in  those  days.  On  the 
contrary,  for  the  people  of  the  period,  a  good  house  was 
one  where  the  grease  was  smelt  (^Kwcra-rjev  Swyua),  and  one's 


LAUIIENTUM.  327 

opulence  was  even  gauged  by  the  intensity  of  this  smell. 
Let  us  add  that  before  the  palace  of  Ulysses  a  heap  of 
dung  was  spread,  which  served  the  poor  dog  Argus  as  a 
bed,  and  that  some  is  also  found  in  the  court  of  Priam's 
house.  "  Here  is  quite  enough,"  says  Dr  Helbig,  "  to 
prove  that  the  atmosphere  then  breathed  in  royal 
dwellings  would  have  singularly  irritated  the  nerves  of 
our  exquisites." 

To-day,  when  we  like  crude  colours  and  expressive 
details,  these  are,  perhaps,  the  traits  which  an  author 
would  choose  in  preference,  in  order  to  give  an  idea  of 
life  in  ancient  times.  If  Virgil  has  neglected  them,  the 
timidity  of  his  taste  is  not  solely  to  blame,  since  he  has 
occasionally  risked  bold  delineations  which  to  some 
fastidious  critics  have  seemed  gross.  It  has  been  com- 
plained that  in  describing  battles  he  is  seen  to  insist 
with  too  much  complacency  upon  the  brains  that  gush 
out,  or  the  blood  and  pus  which  flow  from  the  wounds ; 
and  when  he  describes  to  us  the  gulpings  of  an  old 
pilot  who  has  fallen  into  the  sea  and  vomits  salt  water, 
Heyne  gets  angry  with  him,  and  reproaches  his  testa- 
mentary executors,  Yarius  and  Tucca,  with  not  having 
had  the  courage  to  suppress  these  unpleasant  lines. 
i^or  must  it  be  thought  that  if  Virgil  usually  gives  his 
lines  a  more  modern  air,  it  was  because  he  had  no 
understanding  and  love  for  antiquity.  ]S"o  one  among 
his  contemporaries  loved  it  more  or  understood  it  better. 
Not  only  did  he  not  shrink  from  exactly  reproducing 
the  manners  of  Homeric  times — he  has  even,  now  and 
then,  gone  further  back.  Vestiges  are  found  in  him  of 
a  more  distant  past  than  the  age  of  the  Iliad.  When 
^neas  goes  to  visit  King  Evander  in  his  little  townlet 


328  THE   COUNTRY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

on  the  Palatine,  he  is  shown,  on  the  sides  of  the 
Janiculum  and  the  Palatine  hill,  masses  of  fallen  wall 
covering:  the  soil.  These  are  tlie  remains  of  the  towns 
of  Janus  and  Saturn.  So  there  were  ruins,  already, 
in  the  time  of  the  Trojan  War.  In  these  towns  whicli 
have  been  destroyed,  there  lived  a  generation  of  men 
now  vanished,  and  of  whom  Virgil  tells  us.  He  speaks 
of  this  primitive  race,  "  born  of  oak  trunks,  and  as  hard, 
who  had  neither  customs  nor  laws."  He  tells  us  that 
they  knew  neither  how  to  harness  oxen,  to  cultivate  the 
fields,  nor  how  to  gather  the  wealth  of  the  earth ;  that 
they  thought  not  of  the  morrow,  but  lived  from  day  to 
day,  shaking  the  trees  to  gather  their  fruits,  or  pursuing 
the  beasts  in  the  forests.^  Of  these  first  inhabitants  of 
Italy  we  have  now  recovered  the  trace.  The  depths  of 
the  soil,  the  waters  of  the  lakes,  have  given  us  back  their 
arms  of  stone  or  bronze,  their  utensils  of  clay  or  wood, 
and  even  the  remains  of  their  food ;  but  we  may  say 
that  Virgil,  who  knew  them  not,  divined,  and  was  in- 
tuitively conscious  of  them.  We  see,  in  M.  Bre'al's 
study  on  the  legend  of  Cacus,  how,  under  his  hand,  this 
fable  has  reassumed  its  antique  air.  He  has  restored 
to  it  its  first  aspect,  and  made  it  live  again,  "  like  those 
springs  which  for  a  moment  give  back  to  dried  flowers 
their  brilliancy  and  brightness — he  has  rejuvenated  it, 
yet  not  for  a  moment,  but  for  all  ages."  It  is  above  all 
in  the  short  invocation  of  the  Salian  priests,  by  which 
the  narrative  ends,  that  he  seems  to  have  found  again 
the  tone  of  the  poetry  of  the  first  ages.  M.  Breal  shows 
that  nothing  can  give  a  more  exact  idea  of  the  poetry 

l.^?^.,  VIII.  314, 


LAUPtEXTUM.  329 

of  the  Vedas  than  this  short  passage,  and  that  there  is 
not  a  line  in  it  that  cannot  be  connected  with  certain 
verses  drawn  from  them.  "  Is  it  not  interesting,"  he 
adds,  "to  find  in  the  masterpiece  of  learned  poetry, 
a  fragment  that  would  hold  its  place  among  the  creations 
of  the  most  spontaneous  poetry  that  has  ever  existed  ? 
It  is  the  privilege  of  genius.  It  can  re-awaken  echoes 
that  have  slumbered  for  centuries."  ^ 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  Virgil  could  at  times  go 
back  to  the  most  remote  antiquity,  but  the  end  he  had 
in  view  in  his  work  did  not  allow  him  to  remain  there 
long.  Let  us  remember  that  he  did  not  write  solely  for 
the  pleasure  of  the  curious.  He  had  other  pretensions 
than  to  satisfy  a  few  pedants  who  would  have  liked 
to  hold  him  strictly  to  Homer.  He  addressed  all,  and 
desired  to  find  readers  for  whom  his  poem  was  a  living 
work,  as  low  down  as  letters  could  descend.  Instead, 
then,  of  losing  himself  in  the  distance  of  the  ages, 
whither  few  persons  would  have  followed  him,  and  con- 
structing at  great  pains  an  archcTological  creation  that 
would  have  only  interested  a  few  scholars,  he  strove  to 
put  before  the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries  a  world  in 
which  they  should  feel  at  home.  In  carefully  studying 
his  last  •  books,  where  the  action  takes  place  on  Italic 
soil,  it  will  be  seen  that  he  almost  everywhere  intro- 
duces the  usages  of  his  country  and  of  his  period.^ 
Those   who   read   the  ^neicl  were    charmed   to  come 

^  Breal,  Melanges  de  MytJiologie,  ]i.  145,  et  srq. 

-Thus,  to  cite  but  a  single  example,  the  Latins,  before  beginning 
the  war  with  ^neas,  solemnly  open  the  Temple  of  Janus  (VII.  601), 
and  take  care  to  raise  a  large  standard,  as  was  done  on  the  Capitol  at 
Home  in  similar  circumstances  (VIII.  1).     Nor  do  they  fail   to  ad- 


330  THE   COUNTKY   OF   HORACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

across  customs  familiar  to  them,  and  they  felt  them''- 
selves  brought  nearer  to  tliese  characters  whom  they 
saw  in  action  round  about  them.  Thus  the  poet  was 
enabled  to  reach  that  deep  mass  of  readers  who  only 
take  an  interest  in  what  touches  them,  and  do  not  easily 
risk  themselves  in  a  land  which  they  would  find  quite 
new.  Virgil's  work,  then,  is  not  one  of  those  air-built 
constructions  that  float  in  a  vacuum.  In  it  the  narra- 
tion of  the  past  rests  upon  the  present,  and  imagination 
leans  upon  reality.  These  fables,  stepping  every  mo- 
ment into  history,  give  the  reader  an  illusion  of  truth 
and  life. 

To  this  advantage  was  joined  another,  not  less 
precious  to  Virgil.  Like  his  friend  Horace,  and  all  the 
other  poets  of  that  time,  he  had  made  himself  the 
collaborator  of  Augustus.  He  worked  with  ardour  at 
the  strengthening  of  his  dynasty  and  the  durability  of 
his  reforms,  thinking  this  the  best  means  of  serving  his 
country.  Augustus  was  at  this  moment  carrying  out  a 
difficult  undertaking.  He  was  endeavouring,  as  far  as 
possible,  to  reconcile  the  present  with  the  past ;  and  it 
was  a  point  with  him  to  retain  as  much  of  the  govern- 
ment which  he  had  just  destroyed  as  could  suit  with 
the  order  of  things  he  had  founded.  In  order  to  save 
the  ancient  institutions  from  the  ruin  with  which  they 
were  threatened,  it  was  useful  to  show  that  they  were 
of  ancient  date.     With  a  people  conservative  by  nature 


minister  an  oath  to  those  who  present  themselves  to  take  up  arms, 
while  new  soldiers,  in  order  to  give  themselves  courage,  strike  with 
their  swords  upon  their  shields  (VIII.  2,  5).  This  is  a  usage  still 
practised  in  the  Roman  army  in  the  time  of  Ammianus  Marcellinus. 


LAUEENTUM.  331 

nke  the  Eomans,  to  have  existed  long  was  a  reason  to 
exist  for  ever.  By  ageing  them,  Virgil  rendered  them 
more  venerable  and  sacred.  This  was  especially  his 
aim  in  representing  the  young  people  of  Laurentum 
practising  in  the  management  of  chariots,  in  throwing 
javelins,  in  running,  in  contending  together  round  the 
town.  Custom  imposed  these  occupations  on  the 
Eoman  youth,  and  the  wise  attached  great  importance 
to  them.  It  seemed  to  them  that  they  could  not  be 
neglected  without  risking  a  loss  of  vigour,  bodily  and 
mental.  Horace,  who  in  his  verses  always  puts  himself 
on  the  side  of  virtue  and  the  ancient  customs,  harshly 
reproaches  Lydia  with  inspiring  a  young  man  with  a 
mad  passion  that  makes  him  forget  his  duties.  "  Tell 
me,  in  the  name  of  the  gods,  Lydia,  why  thou  burnest 
so  to  cause  his  ruin  ?  How  comes  it  that  he  shuns  the 
labours  of  the  field  of  Mars,  and  can  no  more  bear  the 
dust  and  sun  ?  Why  leaves  he  his  companions  when 
they  tame  a  stubborn  horse  ?  Why  fears  he  now  to 
plunge  in  the  Tiber's  yellow  waves,  nor  longer  proudly 
shows  us  his  arms,  all  blackened  with  the  bruises  of  the 
the  disk  ? "  ^  Evidently  there  were  then  many  young 
Eomans  who,  instead  of  going  to  the  field  of  Mars, 
passed  the  morning  with  Lydia.  Horace  wishes  to 
shame  them  out  of  their  softness.  Virgil  attains  the 
same  result  by  a  roundabout  way.  He  ages  these 
customs  in  ,  order  to  give  them  more  authority,  and 
render  those  who  abandon  them  more  criminal.  How 
dare  to  discard  exercises  respected  by  so  many  cen- 
turies, and  practised  in  the  time  of  King  Latinus  ? 

^  Horace,  Carin.,  I.  8. 


3o2  THE   COUNTRY   OF   IIOKACE   AND   VIRGIL. 

Unfortunately  it  was  not  an  easy  task  thus  to  bring 
together  the  present  and  the  past.  Yirgil  had  great 
difficulties  to  contend  with  in  placing  the  usages  of  his 
time  in  the  ^neid.  What  figure  would  the  usages  of  a 
recent  epoch  make  transferred  to  such  ancient  ages  ? 
Did  lie  not,  in  introducing  them,  expose  himself  to  dis- 
pleasing inconsistencies ;  and  could  he  hope  to  give  to 
such  a  patchwork  production  an  appearance  of  unity  ? 
He  succeeded  in  doing  so  by  a  very  simple  process. 
With  a  view  to  mingling  ancient  and  modern,  he 
rejuvenates  the  one  and  ages  the  other,  so  that  they 
end  by  meeting  half-way.  He  has  thus  managed  to 
create  a  sort  of  medium  antiquity,  where  fable  and  fact, 
legend  and  history,  the  ancient  and  the  modern,  may 
live  together  side  by  side  without  our  being  shocked  by 
the  mixture. 

In  order  that  the  poet's  skill  may  impress  as  it 
deserves  to  do,  and  full  justice  be  done  him,  his  work 
must  be  viewed  very  closely.  At  a  certain  distance,  a 
uniform  tint  envelops  his  narratives,  all  seems  of  a 
piece  and  flows  like  a  stream ;  but  on  approaching  one 
becomes  conscious  of  the  touching-up,  and  we  can  count 
the  diverse  details  and  incidents  that  concur  to  form 
this  beautiful  whole.  This  is  a  critical  worl^  which 
may  sometimes  appear  trivial,  but  has  the  advantage  of 
making  us  better  understand  the  divine  art  of  Yirgil. 
Only  to  mention  the  town  of  Laurentum  and  the  palace 
of  Latinus,  with  which  we  are  at  this  moment 
busied :  of  how  many  distinct  elements  is  not  this 
learned  picture  formed  ?  How  many  different  ages 
meet  in  it !  The  palace  is  supported  by  columns,  like 
a  Eoman  edifice  of  the  imperial  epoch ;  but  at  the  same 
time  it  is  surrounded  by  a  thick  wood,  like  a  Druidic 


LAURENTUM.  333 

dolmen.^  The  vestibule  is  decorated  with  statues  of 
cedar- wood  ^ — a  grave  anachronism,  since  we  know  from 
Varro  that  Rome  remained  more  than  two  centuries 
without  raising  any  in  her  temples.  Is  it  credible 
that  such  existed  at  Laurentum  three  hundred  years 
before  the  foundation  of  Rome  ?  Virgil,  it  is  true,  tries 
to  give  his  statues  a  Roman  look  and  an  air  of  antiquity. 
It  is  Janus  with  his  two  faces,  Picus  in  the  costume  of 
an  augur,  the  curved  wand  in  his  hand,  as  Romulus 
was  represented.  In  these  costumes  one  is  less  shocked 
at  seeing  them  in  the  house  of  Latinus.  But  here  we 
go  back  further  still.  In  the  middle  of  the  atrium,  a 
few  steps  from  these  statues,  is  found  what  preceded 
the  statues  themselves  in  the  veneration  of  the  nations 
— one  of  those  large  trees  which  were  honoured  as  the 
image  of  the  gods  ere  men  had  learned  to  give  the 
divinity  a  human  form.  It  is  a  laurel,  with  its  saci-ed 
foliage  respected  by  all,  and  which  causes  a  sort  of 
superstitious  fear  to  those  who  pass  beneath  its  shadow.'^ 
The  religion  of  Latinus  is  somewhat  like  his  palace, 
being  composed  of  practices  borrowed  from  different 
epochs  and  countries.  When  he  desires  to  consult  an 
oracle  on  the  subject  of  his  daughter's  marriage,  he 
retires  to  the  vicinity  of  an  Albanian  spring,  "  whence 
exhale  pestiferous  vapours,"*  immolates  a  hundred 
sheep,  and,  lying  on  their  fleeces,  waits  for  the  god  to 
make  his  will  known  in  the  course  of  the  night.  This 
is  a  species  of  divination  very  celebrated  among  the 
Greeks,  and  was  still  used  in  the  time  of  Aristophanes. 


1  ^n.,  VII.  170-3.  2  7^^-^^  177^ 

2  ifcit^.,  59.  ^lbid.,%\. 


334     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

But  Latinus  also  practises  the  most  ancient  rites  of  the 
Eoman  religion.  He  has  his  daughter  to  serve  him  at 
the  altar  when  he  sacrifices,  as  the  vestal  serves  the 
pontiff,^  and  a  voice  issuing  from  the  depths  of  the 
forests  instructs  him  what  he  is  to  do,  "  the  voice  that 
speaks  " — aius  locutiiis,  as  the  old  Romans  called  it. 
The  figure  of  the  king  at  first  sight  appears  a  copy  of 
that  of  Nestor ;  and,  like  him,  he  is  fond  of  old  stories 
and  likes  to  relate  them.^  Yet  Virgil  had  given  him  a 
physiognomy  of  his  own.  Certain  touches  make  us 
feel  that  he  is  a  Latin,  and  that  he  reigns  over  this 
people,  "  virtuous  by  nature  and  needing  not  the  laws 
to  force  it  to  be  just." '  There  is  in  his  character  some- 
thing more  honest,  more  gentle,  and  more  pacific.  He 
is  not  a  despot  who  decides  alone  and  takes  nobody's 
advice  :  he  has  his  council,  which  he  assembles  on 
grave  occasions."*  However,  so  does  Agamemnon,  who 
omits  not  to  consult  the  Greek  chiefs,  whenever  an 
important  decision  is  to  be  come  to.  In  these  assem- 
blies there  is  a  good  deal  of  talking,  and  the  Greek  and 
Latin  heroes,  like  those  of  our  own  chansons  de  geste, 
are  inexhaustible  orators.  As  Homer  says,  "  they  have 
been  bred  to  be  speakers  of  words  and  doers  of  deeds." 
There  are  among  them  some  who  support  authority  and 
others  who  oppose  it.  In  the  Iliad,  the  opposition  is 
represented  by  Thersites.  Homer,  who  loves  the  kings, 
sons  of  the  gods,  has  drawn  a  very  unflattering  portrait 
of  this  rebel :  "Of  all  the  warriors^  assembled  under 
the  walls  of  Troy,  there  was  none  more  frightful.     He 


i.^n.,YII.  72.  ^ Ibid.,  96. 

^  Ibid.,  203.  ^  Ibid.,  XL  2Si. 


LAURENTUM.  335 

v>'as  bandy-legged,  and  with  one  foot  he  limped.  His 
high  shoulders  contracted  his  chest,  and  on  his  pointed 
head  floated  a  few  scattered  hairs."  ^  Clearly,  a  man 
thus  moulded  must  have  a  grudge  against  the  entire 
human  race  for  his  ugliness.  Drances,  Vir^ul's 
Thersites,  has  quite  another  look.  He  is  a  rich, 
important  man,  a  good  speaker  whom  people  like  to 
listen  to,  and  who  knows  how  to  cloak  his  personal 
resentments  with  the  finest  pretexts.  As  Thersites 
detests  Agamemnon,  so  he  is  the  mortal  enemy  of 
Turnus.  His  motives  for  disliking  him  are  of  those 
that  are  not  pardoned.  He  is  old,  and  the  other  is 
young ;  he  is  accused  of  faint-heartedness  in  battle,  and 
naturally  loves  not  those  who  have  a  reputation  for 
bravery ;  he  possesses  fortune,  but  not  consideration,  for 
although  connected  by  his  mother  with  the  greatest 
houses,  his  father's  family  is  unknown.  He  belon^-s, 
then,  to  the  category  of  people  whom  we  now  call 
d4cl(iss4s,  from  whom  malcontents  are  usually  recruited. 
I  cannot  help  finding  that  this  portrait  has  a  modern 
appearance.  A  person  like  Drances  can  only  be 
imagined  and  made  to  speak  well  if  we  have  lived 
under  a  free  rule,  and  have  found  out  by  experience 
what  importance  jealous  mediocrities  can  assume,  and 
the  means  they  use  in  order  to  lower  brilliant  merit. 
In  creating  this  type,  Virgil  surely  thought  of  the 
obscure  struggles  and  base  discords  in  which  the  last 
years  of  the  Eepublic  were  worn  away.'^ 

We  see  that  many  loans  have  here  been  made  from 
different  epochs  and  societies ;  but  they  are  guessed  at 

1  Homer,  Iliad,  II.  217.  ^  ^n.,  XI.  336. 


336  THE   COUNTRY   OF    HORACE   AND    VIRGIL. 

rather  than  clearly  discernable.  In  order  to  bring 
out  the  various  tints  of  which  this  picture  is  formed,  I 
have  been  obliged  to  exaggerate  them.  In  reality,  they 
blend  into  a  uniform  colouring.  The  marvel  is  that 
they  could  have  been  so  well  united  that  the  joining  is 
scarcely  distinguishable.  Virgil  has  succeeded  in  this 
nearly  throughout,  and  if  w^e  except  a  few  passages 
where  the  mixing  is  less  skilful  and  the  joins  more 
apparent,  it  may  be  said  that,  taking  the  poem 
altogether,  the  component  parts  are  so  ingeniously  put 
together  that  they  end  by  making  an  harmonious  whole. 
The  elements  composing  the  work  are  taken  a  little 
from  everywhere,  but  the  poet  only  owes  to  himself  the 
connecting-band  which  holds  them  together,  and  the 
medium  in  which  he  has  placed  them.  This  is  his  true 
originality.  In  order  to  frame  his  stories  and  group  his 
personages,  he  has  created  a  conventional  antiquity,  at 
once  broad  and  elastic,  a  sort  of  twilight  age  in  which 
men  and  things  of  all  times  may  meet  without  surprise, 
and  has  succeeded  in  giving  to  his  creation  an  astonish- 
ing appearance  of  truth  and  life.  This  is  what  other 
writers  of  his  time  did  not  always  manage  to  do.  Many 
of  those  about  him  who  professed  to  love  antiquity 
scarcely  understood  it,  and  he  almost  alone  of  his  age 
possessed  understanding  and  taste  for  it.  Yarro  the 
elder,  so  enamoured  of  the  past ;  Titus  Livius,  whose 
mind,  as  he  says,  felt  so  much  pleasure  in  making  itself 
antique — when  they  tried  to  write  the  history  of  those 
primitive  times,  could  not  make  them  live  again.  On 
the  other  hand,  pictures  which  Virgil  has  traced  of 
them,  although  often  fancy  ones,  have  taken  forcible 
possession  of  all  memories  ;  and  whatever  discoveries 


LAURENTUM.  337 

Archaeology  may  have  in  store  for  us,  I  think  it  may  be 
positively  asserted  that  the  imagination  of  the  learned 
will  always  picture  Laurentum  and  the  palace  of 
Latinus  as  he  has  drawn  them  for  us. 


V. 

COMBAT  OF  ^NEAS  AND  TURNUS — ARTIFICES  USED  BY 
VIRGIL  TO  DEFER  IT — THE  BATTLE-FIELD — DIFFER- 
ENCE BETWEEN  THE  FIGHT  OF  ^NEAS  WITH  TURNUS 
AND  THAT  OF  ACHILLES  AND  HECTOR. 

But  if  we  would  assist  at  the  last  scene  of  the  ^neidy 
we  must  leave  Laurentum  and  this  palace,  where  it 
will  perhaps  be  found  that  we  have  tarried  too  long. 
The  concluding  drama  of  the  poem  takes  place  outside 
the  town,  in  the  plain  extending  from  the  mountains 
to  the  sea. 

The  fight  between  ^neas  and  Turnus  is  announced 
in  advance  and  prepared  with  care,  ^neas  first 
suggests  to  the  Latin  envoys,  who  come  to  ask  a  truce 
of  him,  this  easy  means  of  quite  terminating  the 
difference.^  Drances,  one  of  them,  hastens  to  report 
to  Turnus  his  enemy's  challenge,  and  the  latter  has 
too  much  courage  not  to  accept  it  at  once.  But  the 
gods  who  watch  over  his  days  take  care  to  retard  as 
much  as  in  them  lies  a  struggle  in  which  he  must 
succumb,  and  protect  him  more  than  he  would  have 
them  to  do.  In  the  first  combat,  which  takes  place 
about  the  Trojan  camp,  as  Turnus  seeks  ^neas  with 


i^?i  ,XI.  115. 

Y 


338     THE  COUNTRY  OF  HORACE  AND  VIRGIL. 

fury,  and  the  latter  does  not  fly  him,  one  might  think 
the  meeting  inevitable.  Yet  Juno  finds  a  means  to 
separate  them.  "  She  forms  of  a  light  vapour  a  shadow 
without  consistence,  resembling  ^neas ;  she  clothes 
it  in  Trojan  arms,  lends  it  vain  words,  sounds  without 
ideas,  and  gives  it  the  bearing  of  the  hero.  Such,  they 
say,  are  the  phantoms  that  flit  about  after  death,  such 
the  dreams  which  sport  with  our  drowsy  senses."^ 
Turnus,  deceived  by  the  resemblance,  pursues  the  false 
^neas  to  a  ship,  in  which  he  takes  refuge.  As  soon 
as  he  is  in  it,  the  goddess  breaks  the  cable  which 
attached  the  vessel  to  the  shore,  and  the  poor  champion, 
in  spite  of  his  prayers,  is  carried  by  the  waves  far  from 
the  field  of  battle  where  his  companions  seek,  and  his 
enemy  awaits  him.  Another  time,  circumstances  seem 
more  grave  and  more  pressing  yet.  All  is  ready  for  the 
single  combat,  and  the  final  conditions  are  about  to 
be  arranged.  An  altar  rises  in  the  midst  of  the  plain, 
on  which  iEneas  and  King  Latinus  agree,  by  solemn 
vows,  to  respect  what  has  been  agreed  on,  and  the  two 
armies  are  assembled  to  assist  at  the  decisive  struggle 
of  their  chiefs.  At  this  moment,  Juturna,  sister  of 
Turnus,  who  has  been  beloved  by  Jupiter  and  in 
exchange  received  immortality,  excites  the  Eutules 
not  to  let  their  king  expose  himself  for  them.  Pity 
seizes  them  when  they  see  this  young  man  measure 
himself  against  an  adversary  who  appears  to  them  more 
redoubtable,  and  it  occurs  to  them  to  avoid  by  all 
means  a  struggle  whose  issue  they  foresee.  An  arrow, 
suddenly  let  fly  from  their  ranks,  strikes  one  of  the 

^^n.,  X.  636. 


LAURENTU.^r.  339 

Trojan  chiefs,  and  the  meUe  begins  afresh.^  This  unfore- 
seen and  improvised  combat  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
original  in  all  the  JEneid.  Both  sides  are  carried  away 
by  fury,  and  use  as  weapons  anything  that  comes  to  hand. 
They  fight  around  the  altar  which  they  have  just 
sworn  to  respect,  and  one  of  the  combatants  even 
seizes  a  flaming  brand  used  in  the  sacrifice,  and  hurls 
it  in  the  face  of  an  advancing  foe.  "  His  long  beard 
catches  fire,"  says  the  poet,  "  and  the  odour  it  exhales 
in  burning  is  smelt  from  far."  ^  These  various  incidents 
not  only  serve  to  delay  the  end  of  the  poem,  and  allow 
it  to  attain  a  proper  length ;  they  are  very  skilfully 
handled  so  as  to  increase  our  impatience.  When  this 
combat,  so  often  expected  and  so  many  times  deferred, 
at  last  takes  place,  all  minds  will  be  excited  by  ex- 
pectation, and  will  follow  its  varying  fortunes  with  a 
more  passionate  interest. 

Virgil  gives  this  great  struggle  a  setting  worthy  of  it. 
Let  us  imagine  in  this  now  deserted  plain,  on  one  side 
Laurentum  with  its  high  walls,  and  on  the  other  the 
Trojan  camp,  with  its  gates  and  its  retrenchments.  On 
the  ramparts  of  the  town  and  on  the  tops  of  the  towers 
press  women,  country  people,  and  children,  looking  on. 
The  two  armies  surround  the  field  of  battle,  each 
keeping  its  ranks,  as  if  from  one  moment  to  another 
they  might  be  forced  to  resume  the  interrupted  struggle. 
Meanwhile  the  spears,  for  the  moment  useless,  are 
stuck  into  the  ground,  and  the  shields  rest  against 
them.  The  chiefs  flit  about  in  the  midst  of  the 
soldiers,  resplendent  with  gold  and  purple.     All  eyes 

1  ^n. ,  XII.  216,  et  seq,  a  md, ,  300. 


340  THE  COUNTRY  OF   HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

are  stretched  towards  that  empty  space,  where  the 
fate  of  the  two  peoples  is  about  to  be  staked. 
Heaven  is  not  less  intent  than  earth  on  this  great 
spectacle.  Juno,  in  order  to  be  nearer  to  it,  has 
alighted  on  the  heights  of  Mount  Albanus,  whence 
the  town  of  Latinus  and  the  two  armies  may  plainly 
be  seen,  while  Jupiter,  in  his  heavenly  abode,  holds  in 
his  hands  the  scales  in  which  he  weighs  the  destinies 
of  mortals. 

The  account  of  this  combat  is  one  of  the  most 
dramatic  and  engrossing  descriptions  in  the  ^neid.  In 
reading  it,  one  well  sees  that  the  poet  was  not  exhausted 
by  his  long  journey.  He  arrives  at  the  end  of  his 
work  with  his  mind  as  vigorous  and  his  talent  as 
fresh  and  youthful  as  when  he  began  it.  Death  took 
him  by  surprise  at  the  age  of  fifty-one,  in  the  full 
possession  of  his  genius.  Had  he  continued  to  live, 
not  only  would  he  have  given  the  finishing  touches  to 
the  JEneid,  and  left  it  more  perfect,  but  we  should 
doubtless  also  have  possessed  that  philosophic  poem 
of  which  it  is  said  he  thought  in  the  leisure  moments 
left  him  by  the  composition  of  his  epic,  and  which 
was  to  have  been  the  ripened  and  serene  work  of  his 
last  years. 

I  think  it  needless  to  resume  and  analyse  this  beauti- 
ful narrative  here.  All  readers  of  Virgil  have  it  before 
their  eyes.  Let  it,  then,  suffice  me  to  point  out  in  a  few 
words  what  seems  to  me  its  distinguishing  character- 
istic. The  last  combat  of  Achilles  and  Hector  in  the 
Iliad  has  certainly  a  very  great  importance,  and  one 
feels  very  well  that  it  is  to  decide  the  fate  of  Troy ;  but 
after  all,  the  fall   of  the  town  is  not   its  immediate 


LAURENTUM.  341 

consequence,  and  it  survives  the  death  of  its  staunchest 
defender  for  some  time.     Nor  can  it  be  said  that  the 
combat  is  premeditated  :  the  two  opponents  do  not  seek 
each  other,  and  they  encounter  merely  by  chance.    After 
a  defeat  of  his  side,  Hector  would  not  flee  like  them,  but 
stopped  before  the  gate  to  await  the  enemy.     In  reality, 
he  is  so  little  resolved  to  fight  with  Achilles,  that  he 
takes  to  flight  on  perceiving  him.      In  Virgil,  on  the 
contrary,  everything  is  perfectly  arranged  and  decided 
beforehand.     Turnus   has   taken  leave   of  Amata  and 
Lavinia,  and   ^neas    has    bidden    adieu    to   his   son, 
while  judges  have  chosen  and  prepared  the  spot  where 
they  are  to  encounter.     It  is  a  large  plain,  smooth  and 
bare,  and  in  order  to  leave  no  advantage  of  which  the 
one   might   profit  to  the  detriment  of   the  other,  any 
few   trees   that   grew   there   have   been   levelled.      A 
solemn  sacrifice  precedes  the  signal  of  the   struggle. 
While  the  priests  immolate  a  young  swine  and  a  white 
sheep,  the  chiefs  of  the  two  armies  turn  toward  the  ris- 
ing sun,  whose  first  rays  colour  the  mountain  tops,  and, 
holding  in  their  hands  cakes  of  salted  flour,  invoke  all  the 
gods,  and  engage  to  respect  the  issue  of  the  combat  as  a 
decree  of  Destiny.      According  as  ^neas  or  Turnus 
shall  win  the  victory,  the  Trojans  or  the  Latins  will  be 
definitively  masters,  and  the  fate  of  the  two  peoples  is 
bound  up  in  the  fortune  of  their  champions.     A  sort  of 
judgment  of  God  is  therefore  in  preparation,  and  it  is 
impossible  to  follow  Virgil  in  all  the  details  of  this 
fight  in  the  lists  without  thinking  of  similar  narratives 
found  in  old  chansons  de  geste.      There,  too,  knights 
engage  in  combat  in  the  presence  of  an  assembled  people, 
and  before   fighting  we  see  them  worshipping  relics, 


342  THE   COUNTKY   OF  HORACE  AND   VIRGIL. 

taking  solemn  oaths,  and  giving  gages  of  battle.  What 
completes  the  illusion  is  that  here,  as  in  many  tourna- 
ments of  chivalry,  a  woman  is  the  pretext  and  prize  of 
the  struggle.  "  In  this  arena,"  Turnus  proudly  says, 
"  we  must  win  the  hand  of  Lavinia."  ^ 

"  Illo  qxiceratur  conjux  Lavinia  campo." 

However  great  the  emotion  we  feel  in  reading  the 
combat  between  Achilles  and  Hector  in  the  Uiad,  it 
contains  certain  incidents  at  which  we  cannot  help 
feeling  somewhat  surprised.  For  example,  the  sight  of 
Hector  flying  when  he  sees  Achilles,  "  like  a  trembling 
pigeon  before  the  hawk,"  and  his  only  deciding  to  fight 
when  he  has  no  other  means  of  escape,  grates  upon  us. 
Of  course  we  are  wrong,  and  nothing  is  more  natural 
and  more  true  than  these  sudden  timidities  and  momen- 
tary hesitations  in  the  face  of  a  great  peril ;  but  in  spite 
of  all,  in  the  present  day  they  seem  to  us  out  of  place  in  a 
hero.  We  are  therefore  grateful  to  Virgil  for  having 
spared  us  them.  Of  course  Turnus  flees,  like  Hector, 
but  only  when  the  weapon  he  is  using  is  broken  in 
his  hand,  and  he  remains  without  defence.  "  Then  he 
runs  hither  and  thither,  and  makes  a  thousand  uncer- 
tain turns  "  ;  2  he  approaches  his  soldiers,  whom  terror 
renders  motionless ;  he  calls  them  by  their  names,  and 
urgently  begs  them  to  give  him  his  sword,  and  the 
moment  he  receives  it,  bravely  recommences  the 
struggle.  What  also  shocks  us  in  the  narrative  of 
Homer  is  the  part  the  gods  take  in  the  fight.  In 
reality,  the  victory  is  theirs.     Minerva  never  wavers  in 

^  ^71.,  XII.  80.  ^  Ibid.,  7 43.. 


LAURENTUM.  343 

her  aid  to  Achilles,  who  is  the  stronger,  and  brings  him 
back  his  javelin,  which  he  has  flung  unsuccessfully,  and 
she  basely  deceives  Hector,  who  is  the  weaker,  by 
making  him  think  that  his  brother  Deiphobus  is  going 
to  fight  at  his  side.  It  is  only  when  the  struggle  has 
begun,  and  Hector  wants  his  brother's  help,  that  he 
perceives  he  is  alone,  and  that  the  pretended  Deiphobus 
has  disappeared.  In  Virgil,  the  gods  neutralise  each  other 
by  dividing.  If  Juturna  gives  Turnus  back  his  sword, 
Venus  allows  ^neas  to  draw  out  his  javelin,  which 
has  stuck  in  the  trunk  of  a  wild  olive.  Thus  the  inter- 
vention of  divinity  does  not  annul  the  merit  of  the  men  ; 
the  victory  is  their  personal  work,  and  the  final  success 
is  decided  by  their  own  valour.  It  is  also  curious  to 
note  that  between  the  date  of  the  two  poems  the  senti- 
ment of  honour  has  become  refined,  and  that  Virgil 
already  knows  and  respects  certain  delicacies,  or,  if  you 
will,  certain  prejudices  still  prevailing  among  us  at  the 
present  time. 

His  personages,  when  compared  with  those  of  Homer, 
give  rise  to  the  same  observations.  Although  ^neas 
plays  nearly  the  same  part  as  Achilles,  and  the  poet  at 
moments  has  chosen  to  lend  him  his  character,  he  never- 
theless differs  from  him  very  widely.  In  his  combat 
with  Turnus,  he  pushes  respect  for  plighted  faith  to 
excess.  When  the  Latins,  violently  breaking  the  truce, 
beofin  the  struojoie  asfain,  he  does  not  at  first  think  that 
their  perjury  authorises  him  to  break  his  vow.  Un- 
armed and  bareheaded,  he  would  stay  his  people,  who 
are  trying  to  defend  themselves ;  and  while  preventing 
them  from  returning  the  enemy's  blows,  is  himself 
wounded.     More  remarkable  yet,  the  poet  has  managed 


344  THE   COUNTKY   OF   HORACE  AND  VIKGIL. 

to  make  him  keep  his  humanity  and  gentleness,  even  in 
the  bloody  scene  at  the  end.  There,  especially,  we 
remark  the  difference  between  his  character  and  that  of 
Achilles.  In  reading  the  Iliad  our  hearts  fails  us  at 
the  last  violences  of  the  Greek  hero.  Not  only  does  he 
slay  Hector  without  ruth,  but  he  replies  to  his  touching 
supplications  merely  by  regretting  that  "he  cannot  eat 
his  quivering  flesh."  Pious  ^neas,  on  the  contrary, 
allows  himself  to  be  softened  by  the  prayers  of  Turnus. 
He  is  even  about  to  forgive  him,  when  he  perceives  the 
baldrick  of  his  young  friend  Pallas,  whom  Turnus  did 
not  spare,  in  spite  of  his  youth,  and  whose  spoils  he  has 
appropriated.  We  understand  that  his  anger  should  be 
stirred  up  again  at  this  sight,  and  we  forgive  him  for 
giving  way  to  a  just  resentment.  It  is  not  ^neas, 
but  Pallas,  who  avenges,  and  strikes  Turnus  by  the 
hand  of  a  friend. 

.  "  Pallas  ^  hoc  vulnere,  Pallas 
Immolat."  ^ 

Turnus  resembles  Homer's  heroes  more  nearly,  and  is 
made  upon  their  model.  Yet  he  has  certain  features  of 
his  own,  and  which  are  stamped  with  the  epoch  of  Virgil. 
Above  all,  he  seems  sensitive  to  what  we  call  the  point 
of  honour.  When,  deceived  by  his  sister,  who  would 
save  him  at  all  posts,  he  has  followed  the  false  ^neas, 
and  the  ship  into  which  he  has  imprudently  thrown 
himself  carries  him  far  from  the  battle,  his  grief  is 
intense,  and  nothing  is  more  touching  than  his  laments. 
"  Mighty  Jupiter  !  "  he  exclaims,  "  have  you  then  found 

1^71.,  XII.  948. 


LAURENTUM.  345 

me  worthy  of  such  infamy  ?  What  will  all  those  brave 
men  say  of  me,  who  have  followed  me,  and  whom  I 
have  delivered  up  to  death  without  accompanying  them  ? 
What  is  to  be  done  ?  What  abyss  deep  enough  will 
open  itself  under  my  feet  ?  You,  at  least,  0  winds, 
have  pity  on  me.  Carry  this  bark  against  the  cliffs. 
Turnus  himself  conjures  you.  Break  it  on  these  rocks, 
where  the  reproaches  of  my  friends  and  the  cry  of  my 
remorse  may  reach  me  never  more  !  "  ^  Do  we  not  seem 
to  hear  certain  heroes  of  our  chansons  de  geste .?  It  is 
the  same  generous  ring,  the  same  chivalric  ardour,  the 
same  scrupulous  care  for  honour.  Turnus  is  concerned, 
above  all  things,  for  his  reputation  ;  does  not  wish  any 
one  to  be  able  to  accuse  him  of  disloyalty,  and  would 
willingly  have  taken  his  device  from  the  words  of 
Eoland : 

"  Que  mauveise  chan<;un  de  nus  chantet  ne  scit !  " 

If  I  have  made  a  point  of  dwelling  on  the  resemblances 
observable  between  the  jEneicl  and  the  poems  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  it  is  because  they  seem  to  me  to  have 
some  importance.  It  is  useful  to  show  how  Virgil,  who 
loves  to  connect  himself  with  the  past,  sometimes 
stretches  out  a  hand  to  the  future.  When  we  know  what 
is  ancient  and  what  modern  in  him,  we  better  under- 
stand the  part  he  has  played  in  the  history  of  letters. 
Placed  at  the  meeting-point  of  two  ages,  and  by  a  happy 
chance  partaking  of  both,  he  has  served  as  an  inter- 
mediary between  them.  It  is  through  him  that  we 
reach  Antiquity ;  it  is  he  who  opens  it  up  to  us,  he  who 

■•  ^n.,  X.  668. 


346  THE   COUNTRY   OF    HORACE   AND    VIRGIL. 

leads  and  guides  us  to  it.  Between  it  and  us  he  forms 
a  kind  of  connecting-link,  and  in  this  sense  Baillet  was 
right  in  saying  that  "  he  is  the  centre  point  of  all  the 
poets  who  came  before  and  after  him." 

Such  are  the  reflections  that  forced  themselves  upon 
me  while  trying  to  picture  to  myself  the  combat  of 
^neas  and  Turnus  in  the  plain  of  Laurentum.  I  fear 
they  have  carried  me  very  far.  My  readers  will  doubt- 
less find  that  I  have  kept  them  too  long  on  that  desert 
shore,  searching  for  lost  towns  of  which  no  trace  remains. 
But  travelling  with  Virgil,  one  delights  to  linger  by  the 
way,  and  he  is  a  companion  from  whom  'tis  hard  to 
part. 


THE   END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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